Comfortable win for Advani

Mike Russell scores easy victory; mixed day for Geet Sethi

Sethi made a disappointing start to the day as he lost 383-629 to Sitwala in his opening encounter but came back well to beat England’s Robert Hall 1329-206, on Wednesday night.

Sitwala, who was runner-up in the recently concluded Yorkshire Billiards Open Classic at Bradford, cracked a brilliant break of 183 in the fifth frame to script the win. Sethi then got his elements together and hardly broke into sweat in overwhelming Hall in the next game.
Devender Joshi scored a convincing 615-237 win over Ian Williamson but his compatriot Sourav Kothari was not that lucky as he lost both of his matches.

Korthari lost his first match 394-413 to England’s Martin Goodwill and followed it with a 333-779 defeat against compatriot B Bhaskar. IBSF World billiards champion Pankaj Advani comfortably defeated Robert 787-394 in his only match on the first day.

Title favourite and defending world champion UK’s Mike Russell as expected won both of his games to sit atop the points table. He defeated England’s Ian Williamson 889-269 in his opening match and then got the better of India’s Rupesh Shah 945-211 in his second match.