Advani, Kothari, Damani confirm berths in pre-quarters
Defending champion Pankaj Advani, Sourav Kothari and Brijesh Damani held aloft the flag for the youth brigade by storming into the pre-quarterfinals of the Manisha National Billiards Championships here today.
The trio made the grade with an impressive all-win record in the group league stage of the competition, organised by the Billiards and Snooker Association of Maharashtra at the PYC Hindu Gymkhana.
Petroleum Sports Promotion Board's Advani has been in flawless form since arriving for the championships as he blanked Sundeep Gulati in three straight frames in only 28 minutes to send the Delhi cueist packing in Group A.
The Bangalore cueist, who won 102-36 100-54 100 (64)-56 has so far lost just one frame — to D Bhuveneswaran of Tamil Nadu — while winning his four league matches.
He was set to meet Sarang Shroff of Maharashtra in the final league tie but irrespective of the result, Advani will finish on top of Group A.
Brijesh Damani, who yesterday registered a shock win over eight-time world champion Geet Sethi who later pulled out of the event due to personal reasons, continued his silken touch by beating Shekhar Surve of Maharashtra 3-1 in Group C, winning 101 (76)-66 101-11 37-100 101-14.
This was the Bengal cueist's fourth win in as many matches and it assured him a place in the last 16.
Since Sethi has withdrawn from the championship, the fight for the second qualifier from the group has become interesting with Maharashtra's V Subramanian having a better chance than Andhra Pradesh's IV Rajeev to move ahead.
In Group E, Sourav Kothari was in impeccable form scoring a 3-0 win over Farhad Tengra of Maharashtra, and a 3-2 victory over Railways' Manish Jain.
Accumulating breaks of 60 63 58 and 48, Kothari fought valiantly after being 0-2 down against Manish Jain to win 87-100 63 (60)-100 (60) 102 (63)-50 (50) 100 (58)-78 100 (48)-2.
In the fight for the second qualifier's spot, former point format world champion Ashok Shandilya will have to win against Kothari in his last league match, while Manish Jain has a comparatively easy outing against Tengra.
Former champion Alok Kumar, playing in Group H, was fighting to secure the second berth from the group after K Venkatesham of Railways nudged ahead with an all-win record.
Vishal Madan and Parthiv Zaveri were the others who have mathematical chances of toppling Alok if he loses in his last league match.
Results: Billards (Men):
Group A: Sarang Shroff (Mah) bt Kankan Shamshi (UP) 3-0; Pankaj Advani (PSPB) beat Sundeep Gulati (Del) 3-0; D Bhuwaneswaran (TN) bt Durga Prasad (Rlys) 3-1.
Group B: Dhvaj Haria (Guj) bt Anupam Jha (Bih) 3-0; B Bhaskar (Kar) bt Nittin Kohli (UP) 3-1.
Group C: V Subramanian (Mah) bt Shekhar Surve (Mah) 3-1; I V Rajeev (AP) bt Anmoldeep Singh (Pun) 3-1; Brijesh Damani (Ben) bt Shekhar Surve (Mah) 3-1.
Group D: Arun Agarwal (Mah) bt Subrat Das (Ori) 3-0; Prem Prakash (TN) bt M S Reddy (Rlys) 3-0; D Raj Kumar (Kar) bt Dhruv Sitwala (PSPB) 3-1; Sitwala bt Subrat Das (Ori) 3-0; Reddy bt Raj Kumar 3-1; Prem Prakash bt Agarwal 3-2.
Group E: Sourav Kothari (PSPB) bt Farhad Tengra (Mah) 3-0; Ashok Shandilya (Rlys) bt Rajath Khaneja (Chd) 3-0; Manish Jain (Rlys) bt Ahsan Ul-Haq (Ori) 3-0; Tengra bt Khaneja 3-0; Shandilya bt Ahsan 3-0; Kothari bt Jain 3-2.
Group F: Siddharth Parikh (Rlys) bt Sasha Sambi (Kar) 3-0; Shivam Arora (Bih) bt Malkeet Singh (UP) 3-2; Siddharth Parikh (Rlys) bt Malkeet Singh 3-0; Rupesh Shah (PSPB) bt Arora 3-0.
Group G: Shyam Jagtiani (Ben) bt Mridul Das (Asm) 3-0; Shakeel Ahmed (Ben) bt Rajesh Sharma (Del) 3-1; Devendra Joshi (PSPB) bt Rajesh Sharma (Del) 3-1.
Group H: Parthiv Jhaveri (Guj) bt Vishal Madan (Mah) 3-0; Madan bt Rafath Habib (Rlys) 3-0; Alok Kumar (PSPB) bt Jhaveri 3-0; K Venkatesham (Rlys) bt Himanshu Jain (AP) 3-0; Alok Kumar bt Habib 3-1; Jhaveri bt Jain 3-0.
Billiards (women):
Preliminary round: Indira Gowda (Kar) bt Soumini Srinivas (TN) 2-1; Judy Walia (Kar) bt Asha (TN) 2-1; Ashwini Puranik (MP) bt Aradhana Naik (Kar) 2-0; Varsha Sanjeev (Kar) bt Suniti Damani (Ben) 2-0.
Pre-quarterfinals: R Umadevi (Kar) bt Gayathri S (TN) 2-0; Meenal Thakur (Mah) bt Shilpa Shanthappa (Kar) 2-0; Keerath Bhandaal (Del) bt Jagruti Patel (Mah) 2-0; Varsha Sanjeev (Kar) bt Renu Barkatiya (MP) 2-0.
