Chennai, Dec 10:
Malkeet Singh emerged as the new National 6-Red snooker men’s champion on Saturday after beating his RSPB colleague E. Pandurangaiah 7-5 in a keenly-contested best-of-13 frames final, following a morale-boosting come-from-behind 6-5 victory over favourite and 26-time IBSF world champion Pankaj Advani (PSPB) in the last-four stage.
Pandurangaiah himself came into the title round high on confidence after putting it past fancied Aditya Mehta (PSPB) 6-4 in the other semifinal, but it was former champion Advani’s upset, after having all but sealed the match at 5-3, that left the Indian cue sports community stunned.
Malkeet won the final three frames 59-0, 43-1, 67-13 in spectacular fashion against Advani to record the biggest upset in the ongoing 90th National Billiards & Snooker Championships at the Nehru Indoor Stadium.
“Malkeet held his nerve and got the better of me towards the end,” said Advani, former champion and last edition’s runner-up who subsequently lost the third-place match to Mehta.
In women’s 6-Red snooker, defending champion Vidya Pillai of Karnataka headlines a strong quarterfinal field that includes the current IBSF world U-21 snooker champion Keerthana Pandian (Karnataka) and runner-up Anupama Ramachandran (Tamil Nadu).
6-Red Snooker: Men: Final: Malkeet Singh (RSPB) bt E Pandurangaiah (RSPB) 7-5 (0-58, 51-16, 43-1, 7-57,
Results:
50-23, 69-0, 0-48, 0-60, 49-0, 43-6, 22-42, 33-16). Semifinals: Malkeet bt Pankaj Advani
(PSPB) 6-5 (46-13, 24-36, 20-40, 39-28, 10-45, 32-42, 41-28, 6-47, 59-0, 43-1, 67-13);
Pandurangaiah bt Aditya Mehta (PSPB) 6-4 (23-39, 44-22, 10-41, 44-28, 21-30, 36-14, 42-24,
17-46, 54-5, 40-23).
Women: Pre-quarterfinals: Anupama Ramachandran (TN) bt G Shivani (Tlgn) 3-0, Neena
Praveen (TN) bt Mohita (TN) 3-0, Arantxa Sanchis (Mah) bt Suniti Damani (WB) 3-0, Vidya
Pillai (Kar) bt Neeta Sanghvi (Mah) 3-0, Amee Kamani (MP) bt Shruthi L (TN) 3-1, Chitra M
(Kar) bt Snenthra Babu (TN) 3-0, R Umadevi (Kar) bt Pooja Galundia (Raj) 3-0, Keerthana
Pandian (Kar) bt Ishika Shah (MP) 3-0.
