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Geet Sethi vanquishes Murray

Avinash Nair

BANGALORE: Centuries flew thick and fast as the traditional billiards, the time format of the ONGC IBSF World billiards championship got underway at the KSBA hall here on Saturday. And this was the stage where men stood tall not undermined by freakish runs as was the case in the points format.

In the midst of breaks of 400’s and 300’s that came with regularity, Geet Sethi who not long ago held the world record of 1,276 points at a World professional billiards championship, had a mammoth 885 in his 14th visit which was terminated with the ‘red’ coming off the far jaw.

Aidan Murray of Ireland just sat and admired the master at play. Sethi had a 425 in the ninth visit and a couple of near hundreds to vanquish Murray at 1939-167, in group H.

Impressive performer

Another impressive performer on day one of this format was the tall Singaporean Peter Gilchrist who throttled India’s Raghoo Sinha 1834-368 with a series of century breaks and topped it with a 400 in the 36th. Gilchrist is the current record holder besting Sethi with a 1346 almost a year ago.

Sethi later in the evening delivered what he promised with another huge 750 and followed it up with a 426 to leave Teik Chong Alan Puan of Singapore, the tournament’s oldest player, to stifle a yawn or two.

B. Bhaskar, the Karnataka cueist, scored an important 856-674 win over Thailand’s Praprut Chaithannasakun in group F, while Rupesh Shah and Shyam Jagtiani registered their second wins.

Devendra Joshi is another Indian to watch out for along with Pankaj Advani, the reigning champion in the tim

e format and Dhruv Sitwala. While Advani won handsomely over Prem Prakash at 1735-703 with a 307 early on, Joshi routed Darren Taylor of New Zealand at 1477-332. Joshi came up with a fluent 426 in the 10 and kept his tempo going with a string of high breaks.

The results:

Time Format: League: Group A: Pankaj Advani (Ind) 1735 (307, 109, 120, 161, 164, 255) bt Prem Prakash (Ind) 703; S.M. Shaharwardi (SL) 670 bt Michael Wright (EBOS) 582.

Group B: Devendra Joshi (Ind) 1477 (426, 134, 117) bt Darren Taylor (NZ) 332; Thawat Sujaritthurakarn (Tha) 1380 (279, 111, 186) bt Boon Aun Keith (Sin) 332.

Group C: Thanh Long Nguyen (Vie) 1117 (119, 119, 161, 129) bt Calum Hossack (Sco) 252; Sourav Kothari (Ind) 1113 (116, 154, 199, 223) bt Philip Mumford (Eng) 432 (132).

Group D: Dhruv Sitwala (Ind) 1025 (153, 170, 242, 150) bt Thanh Binh Nguyen (Vie) 647 (104); Larry Drennan (Ire) 781 bt Mohammed Aslam (SL) 485.

Group E: Peter Gilchrist (Sin) 1834 (148, 222, 105, 400, 105) bt Raghoo Sinha (Ind) 368; Shyam Jagtiani (Ind) 765 bt Md. Asim (Ind) 624 (159); Shyam Jagtiani 1040 bt Raghoo Sinha 537; Peter Gilchrist 2089 (188, 348, 312, 122) bt Mohd. Asim (Ind) 429.

Group F: B. Bhaskar (Ind) 867 (132, 117, 138, 102) bt Brijesh Damani (Ind) 697; Praprut Chaithanasakun (Tha) 1151 (325, 141) bt Gary Oliver (NZ) 444; B. Bhaskar 856 bt Praprut Chaithanasakun (Tha) 674; Brijesh Damani bt Gary Oliver (NZ) 1002-759.

Group G: Rupesh Shah (Ind) 1299 (132, 179, 180) bt Suriya Suwannasingh (Tha) 462; Arvind Savur (Ind) 823 bt Wayne Carey (NZ) 623; Rupesh Shah 1247 bt Wayne Carey (NZ) 454; Suriya bt Arvind Savur 815-512.

Group H: Teik Chong Alan Puan (Sin) 957 (124) bt Gary Norman (EBOS) 301; Geet Sethi (Ind) 1939 (425, 885) bt Aidan Murray (Ire) 167; Geet Sethi 2102 (750, 426, 138, 136, 234) bt T.C. Alan Puan (Sin) 159; Aidan Murray bt Gary Norman 628-39.

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