<p>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. <br /><br /></p>.<p>In the first semifinal, Shah defeated Thawat Sujaritthurakarn by a 5-3 margin after trailing by a 0-2 margin. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />In the second last four match, Alok repeated the performance of his compatriot to get the better of Praput Chaithanasukan 5-3. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.</p>
<p>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. <br /><br /></p>.<p>In the first semifinal, Shah defeated Thawat Sujaritthurakarn by a 5-3 margin after trailing by a 0-2 margin. <br /><br />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. <br /><br />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.<br />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.<br /><br />In the second last four match, Alok repeated the performance of his compatriot to get the better of Praput Chaithanasukan 5-3. <br /><br />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.<br /><br />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.</p>