Even if the Men’s section of the Casa Copenhagen was attracting heightened excitement and tension, the Ladies section held the focus of the Casa Copenhagen 6 red snooker national championship here at the Sports club of Gujarat complex.
The eleventh day of the 13 day snooker carnival organized jointly by the Gujarat State Billiards Association & the Sports Club of Gujarat under the auspices of the Billiards & Snooker Federation Of India aroused a lot of interest, drama and snooker skills emanating from the high voltage matches on Monday.
Varsha Sanjeev, the high performing girl frm Karnataka was unshaken though she trailed her senior partner from Bengaluru, Chitra Maghimairaj, losing the first two frames of the best of five frames contest.
Chitra seemed to be on the ascendancy but Varsha got her act going to not only take the ensuing third and fourth frames but was right on top in the deciding fifth frame too to clinch the tie by 10-38, 23-46, 44-13, 37-15 and 55-19 points to March into the semi finals.
On the other table, Indore based International, Amee Kamani was waging a valiant battle against Veteran International from Bengaluru, Revanna Uma Devi Nagraj.
Uma was right on cue leading by two frames to one after the third frame.
Nevertheless, Amee struck good form here at this stage, potting with alacrity and assurance to not only win the fourth frame but also wrest the decisive final frame without much bother and sail into the semis.
National snooker champion, Vidya Pillai had no difficulty in her quarter final match against Delhi’s Keerath Bhandaal as she scripted a straight three frames victory by 64-05, 49-26 and 32-17 points.
Aranxta Sanchis of Maharashtra, the Pune based International was at the same time, on another table having a gala time as she easily won the first frame of her match with TamilNadu’ young star, Anupama Ramchandran.
However Anupama gave a tough fight to Aranxta in the second and third frame but failed to prevent her Senior rival from winning the two frames for a 47-00, 35-23 and 32-23 points victory and entry into the last four of the ladies competition.
Earlier on, in matches which finished late on the tenth night of the tournament, Keerath Bhandaal had blanked out Indira Gowda by 3-0 frames, Vidya had defeated R Uma devi by3-0 frames, and Anupama Ramchandran and Amee Kamani had recorded identical 3-1 victories over Chitra Maghimairaj and Aranxta Sanchis to complete the last eight line up in the ladies section.
Meanwhile in the Men’s section, showing his calibre and solid match temperament, the Golden Boy of Cue Sports, Pankaj Advani downed the only Professional star snooker player of the country, Aditya Mehta in seven frames in the best of nine quarter final tie which showcased the quality of the game of the two top notch cueists, the pride of the country.
Although it was Aditya who set the tone in the very first frame of the contest with a classy break of 65 to take the frame, Pankaj in a determined display of tight safety play mixed with precision potting wrested the next three frames on a trot to lead by 3-1 frames. Aditya got one back by winning the fifth frame but that was as far as he could go
Pankaj executed his tactical percentage game to a fault in an all most perfect manner.
Executing his strokes with deadly accuracy he snatched the sixth and seventh frames to win the contest by 00-65, 42-00, 37-31, 45-07, 05-48, 34-00 and 50-23 points and emerge victorious to enter the quarter finals to be played on Tuesday morning.
Pushpinder Singh, the present no. 4 in Indian snooker coasted to a well deserving seven frames victory over former Asian gold medalist in team event, his compatriot from RSPB, Malkeet Singh who seemed to be weary after his long 5 hours match with Rupesh Shah earlier.
Pushpinder appeared to be the more assured player in potting as well as in playing safe as he prevailed over Malkeet by 45-22, 34-13, 53-05, 67-04, 04-46, 11-27 and 49-13 points to set up a clash with Ishpreet Singh Chadha of Maharashtra.
Ishpreet registered an identical five frames to two victory over Varun Madan of Delhi beating him by 38-34, 40-28, 00-63, 33-26, 52-14, 08-25 and 51-01 points.
Akshay Kumar, the star player of Uttar Pradesh who finished as No. 1. In the India camp before the IBSF world 6 red snooker championship held last year in Turkey put paid to the hopes of the Telengana youngster, Himanshu Jain in eight grinding frames.
Akshay won by 40-07, 14-42, 37-05, 09-40, 50-20, 13-32, 45-06 and 46-18 points.
Akshay faces Pankaj Advani now.
In another match “Mr Style” The PSPB player from Kolkata, Sourav Kothari won his match against the RSPB player, Mohammad Husain in seven frames outplaying him by 15-27, 20-32, 51-01, 48-11, 61-00, 40-13 and 49-00 points to enter the last eight where he now plays another PSPB player based in Kolkata, Brijesh Damani.
Brijesh Damani won his match against Piyush Kushwaha of Madhya Pradesh by five frames to one in an almost one sided match which saw Brijesh take no chances against the aggressive Piyush.
In his over anxiety to get on with the game, Piyush over tried and Brijesh capitalized to secure the frames one by one, eventually winning the match with a degree of comfort at 49-27, 44-28, 31-13, 54-08, 05-56 and 43-06 points.
The last to qualify for the last eight stage was Delhi’s Nitesh Madan employed by the Central Railway in Mumbai. Nitesh beat his Delhi city mate, the present Indian snooker Master’s champion Anuj Uppal in six frames in another one sided encounter.
Nitesh beat Anuj by 49-16, 32-29, 36-08, 18-37, 00-40 and 47-40 points to face Tamil Nadu star, Vijay Nichani.
Vijay playing on the other table coming out unscathed in a nine frames scorcher with the local Gujarat hero, Dhvaj Haria.
At one stage Dhvaj was sitting pretty after pocketing the first three frames of the best of nine frames battle but Vijay, true to his name rallied back magnificently to stage a brilliant comeback and emerge on the top with a splendid victory over Dhvaj by 00-63, 11-56, 07-60, 34-23, 06-66, 48-14, 55-18, 61-00 and 39-01 frames.
Ishtmit Singh Malik
Media Coordinator,
BSFI. Net
