A true champion is one who performs to his potential when it matters most. The Golden Boy of Cue Sports, Padam Bhushan Pankaj Advani was certainly that on Tuesday here at the Sports club of Gujarat on the penultimate day of the Casa Copenhagen 6 red snooker championship organized jointly by the Gujarat State Billiards Association & the Sports club of Gujarat.
Up against the strong challenge of his PSPB compatriot, Brijesh Damani, Pankaj mixed his calculated and precision potting with some very intelligent safety tactics. Brijesh had no clue to counter the near perfect percentage snooker displayed by the Champion.
On the other table, Ishpreet Chadha of Maharashtra who is a complete snooker package was relentless in his onslaught as he outclassed his rival from Railways Sports Promotion Board based in Mumbai, Nitesh Madan to set up a Titanic clash in the snooker final on Wednesday afternoon.
A 57 points break earned Pankaj the first frame of the best of eleven frames semi final. Brijesh wrested one back by taking the second frame with the next two being shared by the players.
Came the cagey fifth one, Brijesh missed a good chance with only one red remaining and Pankaj completed the clearance of the red and colours to forge ahead. A classic break of 64 fetched Pankaj the sixth to consolidate his lead by 5-1 frames.
Brijesh executed a fine clearance break of 65 in the seventh to close the gap but it was here that Pankaj closed shutter.
Applying his tactical superiority in safety play, Pankaj just snatched the match on the eighth frame to win by 57-07,15-30, 39-11,57-16, 35-29, 64-00, 00-69, and 39-18 to enter the final.
On the other table, Nitesh. Madan of RSPB found the going very tough against Ishpreet as the latter kept up constant pressure to take three frames on the trot against one on the stage of the fourth frame.
Sharing the fifth and sixth, Ishpreet was potting with aplomb, controlling his cue ball adroitly to pocket the seventh frame for a crucial 5-2 frames lead needing just another frame to win.
Nitesh did well to snatch the eighth frame. However that limited success was nullified when Ishpreet outpotted Nitesh in the vital ninth frame to achieve victory by 35-24, 39-29, 01-58, 42-28, 43-00, 17-43, 42-03, 15-39 and 40-19 points, setting up the Titanic clash with Pankaj in what promises to be a very closely contested snooker final at 3 pm.
Meanwhile in the Ladies section, Vidya Pillai, a multi times national winner from Bengaluru romped home against her much younger city mate, Varsha Sanjeev without a bother while Amee Kamani of Madhya Pradesh had to wage a very tough fight before she could quell the rather strong challenge of the Pune based girl from Maharashtra.
In the Vidya- Varsha contest, one thought that the match would be a toss up between the two ladies but Vidya who is a role model for so many, was just on a high in her match with Varsha.
Vidya simply steam rolled her young opponent in four straight frames by 62-10, 58-16, 33-02 and 42-04 points to sail into the final.
Whereas the Amee- Aranxta encounter was a treat for the audience as both players exhibited their class, matching each other in potting as well as in safety play.
With both the lady cueists tied at three all after six frames, the seventh frame became a tense battle of attrition before Amee exhibited her superiority in potting under pressure to emerge a winner by 08-35, 47-19, 42-00, 07-53, 27-29, 34-14 and 43-13 points to set up a final showdown with her great friend Vidya which should be a humdinger of a finale.
In the matches for minor placings in Ladies, Anupama Ramachandran of Tamil Nadu emerged as the no. 5 player beating Keerath Bhandaal of Delhi in straight frames by 2-0 Keerath finished sixth .
Earlier Keerath beat Chitra Maghimairaj of Karnataka by 2-1 frames to relegate Chitra to seventh position while Revanna Uma Devi Nagaraj ended last on the eighth position.
In the Men’s category, Sourav Kothari beat Akshay Kumar by 3-2 frames and Pushpinder by 3-0 frames to finish fifth. Pushpinder finished sixth. Akshay ended up at seventh while Vijay Nichani finished as eighth.
