The Hindu : Sport / Billiards & Snooker : Geet Sethi survives a scare

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Sunday, Dec 20, 2009
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Sport - Billiards & Snooker

Geet Sethi survives a scare

Sports Reporter

— Photo: R. Ragu

TOUGH BATTLE: Geet Sethi was stretched in the VIP Access all-India invitation snooker tournament on Saturday.

Chennai: Qualifier Girish almost pulled off the upset of the day when he dragged Geet Sethi all the way to the wire before losing 4-3 in a group ‘G’ match of the VIP Access all-India Invitation snooker tournament on Saturday.

Going into the final frame with the scores tied at 3-3, Girish, in potting the brown, inadvertently placed the cue ball out of reach of the lone red and ended up gifting Sethi with 44 points. It was symptomatic of the whole game as both players profited more from their opponent’s indiscretion than their own play.

With 24 players segregated into eight groups, each playing only two matches in the round-robin format, frame scores could decide qualification in tied groups.

On that count, Varun Kumar found himself in a comfortable position as he blanked Vijay Nichani 4-0.

Another tight match saw I.K. Manudev battle Siddharth Rao for positions in group ‘A’. Siddharth started brightly, taking the first frame 95-0, but was unable to press on as both players ran up leads only to let the other off the hook when the match was theirs for the taking.

Up three frames to two, Siddharth seemed to run out of gas and Manudev pulled his game together to take the final two frames and with it the contest 4-3. The other qualifiers had a mixed day as Sridhar managed to win his match match while Faisal Khan and Jagan Williams went down.

The results (best of 7 frames):

Group A: I.K. Manudev (Kar) bt Siddharth Rao (TN) 4-3 (95-0, 54-80, 58-29, 47-61, 31-78). Group B: Varun Kumar (TN) bt Vijai Nichani (TN) 4-0 (91-14, 62-35, 75-29, 66-25). Group C: Sridhar (AP) bt Dilip Kumar (TN) 4-3 (47-74, 65-36, 62-50, 61-42, 41-69, 39-68, 55-19). Group D: Prem Prakash (TN) bt Jagan Williams (TN) 4-2 (26-69, 70-13, 65-58, 52-48, 41-80, 71-8). Group F: Rafat Habib (RLY) bt Imran Ganj (TN) 4-1 (51-62, 74-22, 68-43, 55-10, 77-1). Group G: Geet Sethi (GUJ) bt Girish (RLY) 4-3 (45-84, 51-15, 72-14, 53-57, 57-11, 70-30, 78-53). Group H: Rupesh Shah (PSPB) bt Sudeep Gulato (DEL) 4-3 (65-32, 24-68, 13-76, 89-12, 59-13, 18-65, 89-22).