The Hindu : Pankaj Advani bags title

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 12, 2002

Sport

Sport - Billiards & Snooker

Pankaj Advani bags title

By Our Sports Reporter

Pankaj Advani, winner of the M.S. Ramaiah memorial invitation snooker tournament in Bangalore on Tuesday.

BANGALORE June 11. Teen sensation Pankaj Advani of Karnataka capped a fine week with a 6-3 win over Dharminder Lilly of Punjab to pocket the title and the winner's purse of Rs. 30,000 in the M.S. Ramaiah Memorial All India Invitation prize money snooker tournament at the Malleswaram Association hall here this evening. Pankaj Advani won 51-43, 60-28, 47-56, 36-72, 27-74, 75-41, 65-44, 90-1, 57-23 in the best of 11-frame final.

However the final lacked all the excitement and the organisers only compounded the players' agonisingly tentative play with interruptions. If there was an hour long break after the fifth frame, the unscheduled interruptions for about 20 minutes with the arrival of the chief guest at the end of the seventh frame sure did upset the rhythm of the players. The flow and the continuity was indeed missing!

Neither player — Pankaj Advani nor Dharminder Lilly — looked at ease. The Punjab cueists more proficient in the nine-ball pool and playing is first major snooker final was anything but comfortable at the table, while Pankaj after his resounding win over Sarang Shroff in the semifinals late last night had to prove himself at the crunch. In the process both erred badly and missed some simple straight forward `pots' much to the dismay of a goodly gathering.

It was more so Lilly's largess that saw the 16 year old Pankaj get off to a 2-0 at 51-43 and 60-28 with a scratchy 46 in the second which was interrupted thanks to movements in the foreground. This however was a common occurrence throughout the match.

Lilly however bounced back with some steady potting to not only draw level at 2-2 but went into the long break with a 3-2 advantage winning the next three frames 56-47, 72-36, with a break of 35, and 74-27. But this was all that the Punjab lad could muster as a change of shirt during the break only reversed his luck.

Pankaj did not muster anything out of the ordinary but `snooked' well and virtually had Lilly playing into his hand, more so in the seventh frame which he won 65-44, after pocketing the sixth at 75-41.

The last two frames witnessed some brilliant potting from the teenager, who upped his play by a couple of notches to win the eighth frame at 90-1 with two steady breaks of 37 and 22 which took the sting out of Lilly.

Lilly settled for the runner-up prize money of Rs. 20,000 as Pankaj showed lot more consistency in the ninth frame to pocket the frame and title at 57-23. Both players known for their instinctive play neither displayed the fluency nor the fire, in a match that lasted for over three and a half hours.

D. Rajkumar, claimed Rs. 3000 for the highest break (105) of the tournament.

The result (Final, Best of 11 frames): Pankaj Advani (Kar) bt Dharminder Lilly (Pun) 6-3 ( 51-43, 60-28, 47-56, 36-72, 27-74, 75-41, 65-44, 90-1, 57-23).

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