Advani strikes confident note

Ace cueist determined to make up for Vietnam disappointment

Aditya Mehta, Mannan Chandra and Brijesh Damani won gold in the team snooker event and World champion Pankaj Advani won bronze in the billiards event in Vietnam, India’s only medals in the competition.

Explaining the poor outing in Vietnam, Advani said, “The knockout format of the tournament played on our mind a lot and the tables were not the best we have played on. I’m happy I finished with a bronze. I hope we do well in Hyderabad, we have a strong team.”

Looking for positives from his campaign, Advani said: “I did underestimate my opponents but that’s going to be a thing of the past. There were some half-hearted attempts and I did not read the conditions well, but it won’t be the case this time.”

Karnataka’s Chitra Magimairaj, who bowed out to China’s Bi Jhuqing in the pre-quarterfinal of the six-red snooker, said: “I took part in the World Championship in 2003 and went out in the quarterfinals. This time, I hope to go on to prove a point.”

Advani, Balaji Reddy, MS Ar-un, IH Manudev, BVS Murthy and Chitra will be Karnataka’s representatives in the national squad.

Team: Men: Pankaj Advani, Mannan Chandra, Aditya Mehta, Brijesh Damani, Kamal Chawla, Sourav Kothari, Shahbaz Adil Khan, Alok Kumar, Yasin Merchant, Rupesh Shah, Lucky Batani, Dhruv Sitwala, IH Manudev, R Girish, Balaji Reddy, MS Arun.

Women: Vidya Pillai, Chitra Magimairaj, Anuja Chandra, Neena Praveen, Meenal Thakur, Neeta Sangwi, Suniti Damani.

Masters: Devendra Joshi, Geet Sethi, BV Srinivas Murthy, Naleem Ahmed, K Ranjan, SA Saleem, Syed Habib, KH Kamaraj.