Snooker: Advani, Pillai annex titles

Pankaj Advani of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board capped a brilliant run with a break of 139 to beat Kamal Chawla of the Railways 6-3 in the final and regain the senior men's National snooker title here Friday.

Advani had to pull out his very best to subdue Chawla who can be quite a sticky customer at best of time. The 28-year old Bangalore-based Advani took the eighth and ninth frames with breaks of 64 and 139 to complete a decisive win.

Another Bangalorean, Vidya Pillai retained her National snooker crown in the women's section with a hard-fought 4-3 win over team-mate Chitra Magimairaj who squandered a 3-2 lead.

The results:

Men's snooker: Final – Pankaj Advani (PSPB) bt Kamal Chawla (RLY) 6-3: 85(84)-00, 38-88, 70-15, 90(69)-03, 36-64, 100(61)-05, 23-85(85), 86(64)-00, 139(139)-00.

Semi-finals: Chawla bt Brijesh Damani (PSPB) 5-3; Advani bt Dharminder Lilly (PB) 5-3.

For 3-4 positions: Damani bt Lilly 4-1. For 5-6: Faisal Khan (RLY) bt Sundeep Gulati (DL) 3-0. For 7-8: Laxman Rawat (PSPB) bt Shivam Arora (BH) 3-2.

Women's snooker: Final – Vidya Pillai (KTK) bt Chitra Magimairaj (KTK) 4-3: 38-67, 16-55, 63-29, 96(76)-08, 36-70, 56-42, 56-47.

Semi-finals: Pillai bt Amee Kamani (MP) 3-1; Magimairaj bt Neeta Sanghvi (MH) 3-0. For 3-4: Kamani bt Sanghvi 2-0.

For 5-6: R Umadevi (KTK) bt Neena Praveen (TN) 2-1. For 7-8: Arantxa Sachis (MH) bt Meenal Thakur (MH) 2-1.