The Hindu : Sport : Georgiou takes title

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Saturday, Sep 01, 2007
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Sport

Georgiou takes title

Avinash Nair

VASCO: Michael Georgiou of England capped a fantastic 10 days of gutsy snooker to lift the Vascon Manisha 20th IBSF World under-21 snooker championship at the Bogmallo Beach Resort here on Friday.

But for once the crowd felt disappointed for the loser, Anda Zhang of China. Georgiou won 11-6 in the best of 21 frames final and a cash prize of $4,000.

Having arrived a day late for the championship, Zhang lost his opening league match in Group ‘A’ against Qatar’s Ali Al Obaidly.

But then on, the Chinese mastered every odds in his march to the title round, including a 4-2 annihilation of Michael in the first week of the event.

Two tough matches, the quarterfinal and semifinal, seemed to have made him a better player, but then the ball did not roll well for him on Friday. And his body language after the first session of the final which he trailed 4-6 was not encouraging.

Georgiou did the catching up game early on. Every time Zhang went a frame up, Georgiou came back strongly to level the scores, but as luck would have it, in the eighth frame, Michael got a ‘fluke’ pink before Zhang went in-off on black.

Tied 4-4, Zhang was not the same. He had a touch of circumspection in his game, while Georgiou went hammer and tongs to take a 6-4 lead at the end of the first session.

Century break

When Zhang came up with a century break, Georgiou replied with a 77 immediately.

The expected turnaround in fortunes did not materialise and Georgiou clearly seemed to have scored a morale victory by the 14th frame and simply extended his streak to win 11-6.

“It’s a dream cum true. I dedicate this victory to my grandfather who passed away early this year. I was always apprehensive of the Chinese,” Georgiou said.

However, Bi Zhuqing, the 18-year-old Chinese, brought joy to the Chinese camp with a clinical demolition of Hong Kong China’s Ng On Yee 4-2 in the best of seven frames final.

Bi won 61-27, 63-49, 39-49, 35-57, 57-49, 59-25.

The results: Men: Final (best of 21 frames): Michael Georgiou (Eng) bt Anda Zhang (Chn) 11-6 (19-88 (86), 67-31, 16-69 (61), 69-64, 56-62, 0-112 (112), 104 (77)-0, 59-58, 72-24, 71-46, 61-65, 73 (72)-8, 0-78 (78), 61-22, 79-43, 79-0, 7 6-7). Third place (best of seven frames): Daniel Wells (Wal) bt Vincent Muldoon (Ire) 4-1 (91-0, 80-45, 97-0, 28-59, 66-43).