The Hindu : Sport / Billiards & Snooker : It's Russell vs. Gilchrist

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It's Russell vs. Gilchrist

Geet Sethi

Peter Gilchrist.

Pune: Mike Russell will take on Peter Gilchrist in the final of the time format 2010 IBSF World billiards championship.

In an engaging and tense thriller, the Englishman saw a commanding 600 first-session lead evaporate towards the concluding stages of the match as Pankaj Advani, the 25-year-old Indian maverick, found his rhythm and flow in the last one hour of the contest.

The 42-year-old eventually won by a margin of only 117 points, a telling testimony to Advani's resilience under severe pressure.

Advani struggled initially both with the table and his own control over the balls. It is unnerving to play against an accomplished cueist like Russell whose ability, knowledge and consistency of big breaks has made him the best cueist of the modern era.

And in what proved to be a crucial first session, Advani lost the plot as he failed to punish Russell when he received a scoring opportunity.

And rather unexpectedly, the 10-time World champion gave innumerable openings to his younger opponent. Russell compiled early breaks of 334, 186 and 177 to enjoy the early advantage.

And as he has done so many times in the past, Advani responded to the severe pressure with a ferocity, which surprised Russell. First a 255, followed by a 185 and then he launched into a 317, which could have been an unfinished break and would have won him the match had he not missed a drop cannon.

In fact there was added drama when Advani thought he had got the contact but referee Prakash was firm in his decision that the cannon did not take place. With that ended Advani's bid to retain his time format title. He has now lost both his titles in the span of four days.

Peter Gilchrist reversed a 450 deficit against Geet Sethi with a superbly constructed 610 break and then put the nail in the coffin with a 454 to blunt out the Indian's challenge.

The results: Semifinals: Peter Gilchrist 1668 (87, 610, 247, 454) bt Geet Sethi 1022 (135, 170, 103, 143); Mike Russell 1417 (334, 186, 177, 125, 308) bt Pankaj Advani 1300 (231, 255, 185, 317, 81 unf).

Quarterfinals: Sethi 1658 (192, 230, 221, 127, 78, 152, 74, 52, 245, 52) bt Ashok Shandilya 455 (44); Gilchrist 851 (205, 89, 268, 145) bt Dhruv Sitwala 831 (109, 66, 316, 59, 118, 93); Russell 1127 (231, 633, 79) bt Kyaw Oo (Mya) 850 (78, 239, 187, 95, 109); Advani 1279 (79, 49, 103, 89, 69, 709*) bt Rupesh Shah 684 (121, 75, 97, 163) .

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