The Hindu : Sport : Dharminder Lilly wins title

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 01, 2007
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Sport

Sport - Sports : General

Dharminder Lilly wins title

Principal Correspondent

Lilly confirms berth for the second Asian Indoor Games
Alok Kumar takes third spot

NEW DELHI: Dharminder Lilly put his experience with pool to the best use and extracted canons from unimaginable angles to win the title at the inaugural National one-cushion carombole championship at the Billiardco Hall here on Tuesday.

Lilly, who is in line for a berth in the World pool championship, defeated Manan Chandra 111-89 in just over an hour to emerge the worthy winner.

With this win, that earned him Rs. 15,000, Lilly has confirmed his berth in the cue sport team for the second Asian Indoor Games in Macau, China, from October 27 to November 3.

The champion, however, will also try to make the pool team. The selection trials for all other disciplines of cue sports will be held in Bangalore in the second week of August.

“I was very much confident of making it to Macau,” said Lilly, who is also the defending three-cushion carombole champion.

Steady start

Lilly started steadily and picked up his level nicely on his 15th visit when he made a break of seven canon. Another 10 in his 20th visit helped Lilly to gain slight edge over Manan, who had led briefly.

While Manan was more circumspect, Lilly had his shots mapped out even before he approached the table.

Another break of seven in the 30th visit helped him to establish a 20-point lead before Lilly consolidated his chance of making it to Macau.

After 50 visits, scores were 98-72 in Lilly’s favour and he breached the 100-point mark on his 55th visit before going on to make the highest score of the championship at 111.

With the two posting 200 points in total, it was for the first time that the Indian cueists have managed an average of more than 1.6.

In the play-off for the third place, Alok Kumar defeated Sumit Talwar by six points, in a match played over 30 visits.

The results: Final: Dharminder Lilly bt Manan Chandra 111-89.