Shah, Alok set up summit clash

India’s reigning world champion Rupesh Shah and former Asian champion Alok Kumar put it past their Thai opponents to reach the final of the 12th Asian billiards championship here on Saturday.

In the first semifinal, Shah defeated Thawat Sujaritthurakarn by a 5-3 margin after trailing by a 0-2 margin.

Thawat was on fire from the opening game and produced back to back breaks of 97 and 98 points to take a 2-0 lead. In the third game, Shah got his act together and played some shots to settle himself but Thawat bettered himself and scored 100-83 to increase the lead to three games.

Though Rupesh was down, the time he spent on the table gave him a chance to settle down which resulted in him winning the fourth game win to narrow the deficit by 1-3.
After that Rupesh did not look back and produced breaks of 84, 97, 101 and 60 points in next four games to seal the match 5-3.

In the second last four match, Alok repeated the performance of his compatriot to get the better of Praput Chaithanasukan 5-3.

The Indian started with a 61 point break in the opening game for a 1-0 lead. But after that Chaithanasukan won two back to back games on 59 and unfinished century breaks to gain a 2-1 lead.

Before Praput could do any further any damage, Alok got back on to the job and produced two breaks of 71 and 82 points and successfully countered Praput's lead.