The Hindu : Sport / Billiards & Snooker : Shahbaaz Khan keeps winning

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Friday, Apr 17, 2009
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Sport - Billiards & Snooker

Shahbaaz Khan keeps winning

G. Viswanath

Pune: Shahbaaz Khan outwitted Li Yuan at the PYC Gymkhana and firmed up his place in the quarterfinals of the Rewale Group Asian under-21 snooker championship.

The medical student from Kolkata has demonstrated a good appetite to win matches. It was Shahbaaz’s fifth straight win in the league, three against strong players Pakpoj and Yuan and three against Aditya Deshpande, Ryan Somara and Albaqshi Nidhal; all that can be categorised as warm-up matches

On Thursday in the crunch match in which he had to steal a frame from Yuan to qualify for the knock-out, Shahbaaz pounced on every chance that came by, sustained the pressure on Yuan and settled the issue in the first frame itself.

Sharvan Mohta was not as lucky; he lost 1-3 to Thailand’s Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon and was eliminated from the competition.

It was a classic skirmish in the opening frame with Shahbaaz manipulating the hand ball to snooker positions.

Advani sizzles

In the billiards league set at 100 points, India’s champion performers Geet Sethi and Pankaj Advani notched up their second consecutive wins.

Advani flattened Dhruv Sitwala and Sethi, cruising on a two-game advantage, saw Myanmar’s Kayw Oo hit back to restore parity, but Sethi — who will turn 48 on April 19 — clinched the fifth and the match.

Singapore’s Peter Gilchrist notched up four wins in a row, starting his first match at 11 a.m. and finishing the fourth before 7 p.m.

The results: Snooker (League): Group A: Shahbaaz Khan (Ind) bt Li Yuan (Chn) 3-0 (75-40, 66-19, 70-23).

Group B: Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon (Tha) bt Shravan Mohta (Ind) 3-1 (67-11, 57-60, 107(89)-83, 83-0.

Billiards (League): Group A: Pankaj Advani (Ind) bt Dhruv Sitwala (Ind) 3-0 (100-1, 101-30, 102-8), bt Aung Htay (Mya) 3-2 (100-34, 59-100, 100-47, 69-100, 100-0).

Group B: Geet Sethi (Ind) bt Kayw Oo (Mya) 3-2 (101-64, 100-32, 94-100, 7-101, 100-10), bt Surya Suwanna Singh (Tha) 3-1 (100-74, 18-100, 100-21, 100-71); Kayw Oo (Mya) bt Rupesh Shah (Ind) 3-2 (102-15, 101 (99)-12, 64-101 (73), 35-100, 100 (97)-22).

Group C: Peter Gilchrist (Sin) bt Saurav Kothari (Ind) 3-2 (100-0, 61-100, 100-0, 85-100, 100-26), bt Bari Chaudhary (Ban) 3-0 (100-0, 100-23, 100-27), bt Sirisoma (SL) 3-0 (101-8, 102-30, 101-87), bt C. Pruprut (Tha) 3-0 (101-35, 102-0, 100-63); Sirisoma bt Bari Chaudhary 3-0 (100-82, 100-19, 100-21).

Group D: Thawat Sujaritthurakan (Tha) bt Devendra Joshi (Ind) 3-2 (55-100, 102-99, 20-101, 101-50, 101-96).

Last eight qualifiers: Billiards: Pankaj Advani (India), Aung Htay (Myanmar), Geet Sethi (India), Kayw Oo (Myanmar), Peter Gilchrist (Singapore), C. Praprut (Thailand), Thawat Sujaritthurakaran (Thailand) and Nguyen Thanh Long (Myanmar).

Snooker: Shahbaaz Khan (India), Yuttaopop Pakpoj (Thailand), Thanawat Thirapongpaiboon (Thailand), Cao Yupeng (China), Poramin Danjirakul (Thailand), Sohail Vahedi (Iran), Zhang Anda (China) and Noppom Saegkham (Thailand).

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