Top cueists win on opening day of national billiards championship

The big guns of Indian billiards - Pankaj Advani, Sourav Kothari and Rupesh Shah - registered easy wins in their respective group matches on the first day of the billiards main draw at the National Billiards & Snooker Championship 2015 at the Bengal Rowing Club here Monday.

In Group A, defending champion Sourav Kothari of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) kickstarted his tourney with a straight win over S. Shankar Rao of Andhra Pradesh.

Though Rao tried holding back his opponent in the first two games, Kothari clinched the encounter with an unfinished break of 100 in the third. In the second game which witnessed some exciting moments, Kothari beat C. Vijayaram of Tamil Nadu.

In a group H encounter, Pankaj Advani gave a flawless display to register comfortable wins over Subodh Lahiri of Uttar Pradesh and Telengana's Ranjit M.N. The 12-time world champion Advani also scored a century break against both Ranjit and Lahiri.

In Group E, Rupesh Shah of PSPB beat Anupam Jha of Bihar 3-0 with the scoreline reading 101(101)-00, 104(96)-00, 105(45)-14.

Monday's scores:

GROUP A

Sourav Kothari (PSPB) beat S. Shankar Rao (AP) 3-0

101-67, 100(62)-83, 100(100)-49

Rafath Habib (RSPB) beat Shahbaaz Adil Khan (PSPB) 3-0

101-78(59), 102-79, 1104(75)-16

Aamer Hussain (West Bengal) beat C. Vijayaram (Tamil Nadu) 3-2

101-55, 101-91, 95-100, 89-101, 100-65

Sourav Kothari (PSPB) beat C. Vijayaram (TN) 3-1

55-102, 100-94, 102-51, 102-31

GROUP B

Alok Kumar (PSPB) beat Rakesh R. Pradhan (Orissa) 3-0

100-80, 102(62)-03, 100-30

Vishal Madan (Maharashtra) beat Ankit Kariwala (West Bengal) 3-0

100(80)-20, 100(57)-55, 100-32

Shivam Arora (Bihar) beat I.H. Manudev (Karnataka) 3-2

101-32, 100-46, 52-102, 59-100, 100-98

GROUP C

B. Bhaskar (Karnataka) beat Ketan Chawla (Madhya Pradesh) 3-1

100(100)-00, 89(78)-100, 100-32, 100-05

Dhvaj Haria (PSPB) beat Aditya Agrawal (RSPB) 3-2

36-100, 102(102)-00, 81-100(78), 100-28, 102(102)-00

Himanshu Jain (Telengana) beat Kankan Shamsi (Uttar Pradesh) 3-0

101-69, 100-76, 100-98

GROUP D

Manish Jain (West Bengal) W/O Divya Sharma (Haryana)

Dhruv Sitwala (PSPB) beat S. Mumtaz Ali (Jharkhand) 3-0

101-37, 100(62)-32, 101-33

GROUP E

Rupesh Shah (PSPB) beat Anupam Jha (Bihar) 3-0

101(101)-00, 104(96)-00, 105(45)-14

Siddharth Parikh (RSPB) beat Amit Sharma (Delhi) 3-0

100(58)-05, 100(53)-39, 100-83

Neeraj Kumar (RSPB) beat Shyam Jagtiani (West Bengal) 3-0

101-72(53), 102-56, 101-23

Rupesh Shah (PSPB) W/O Aneesh Saini (Haryana)

Siddharth Parikh (RSPB) beat Anupam Jha (Bihar) 3-0

100(60)-00, 100(82)-11, 100-15

GROUP F

Brijesh Damani (PSPB)beat Anseth Pareira (Jharkhand) 3-0

101(75)-10, 100(68)-58, 101-30

Chandu Kansodaria (Maharashtra) beat Parthiv Jhaveri (Gujarat) 3-0

101-75, 100-52, 101(91)-16

Brijesh Damani (PSPB) beat D. Rajkumar (Karnataka) 3-0

101-40, 101(73)-43, 101(89)-39

Chandu Kansodaria (Maharashtra) beat Anseth Pareira (Jharkhand) 3-0

100-79, 100-65, 100-48

GROUP G

Devendra Joshi (PSPB) W/O Sanjay Bisht (Uttarakhand)

Malkeet Singh (RSPB) beat Puneet Kaushik (Delhi) 3-0

102-50, 103-38, 100-53

Nikhil Ghadge (RSPB) beat I.V. Rajeev (Andhra Pradesh) 3-2

59-100, 60-100, 100-92, 100-47, 100-67

GROUP H

Jaiveer Dhingra (Maharashtra) beat Ranjit M.N. (Telengana) 3-0

100(50)-68, 100(66)-00, 100-75

Pankaj Advani (PSPB) beat Subodh Lahiri (Uttar Pradesh) 3-0

101(82)-36, 102-36, 104(104)-00

Durga Prasad (RSPB) beat S. Simhachalam (RSPB) 3-0

101-62, 101-92, 100-65