CHENNAI: It was the year 2010. Amee Kamani, all of 18 at the time, had a decision to make. An important one at that. She was a veteran of close to 20 nationals in varying age groups in her chosen sport, table tennis, but it wasn’t whetting her appetite. She wasn’t getting the results she desired and time was running out. This was when she decided to twist.
A casual pool player at the time, Kamani, on the advice of a few friends, swapped her TT racquets for cue sticks. Five years later, she has reaped the rewards — bronze at the 2014 IBSF 6-Red World Snooker team event, runner-up at the 2014 Australian Open and a winner at the Senior Women’s Mationals in January this year. In a continuing trend, she recently qualified to represent India at the World 6-Red Snooker Championship (Karachi, August 2015).
She naturally ‘feels great to be part of the Indian contingent for such an event’, but remembers how she got here. “I had taken part in close to 20 nationals (in TT) in varying age groups without much success,” she says. “I had perhaps realised that I wasn’t going to make it at that level (as a TT player).
“That’s when a few of my friends in Indore asked me to give snooker a go. I used to play in a few pool parlours, so I thought, ‘why not’.”
She adapted to snooker rather quickly and came to the conclusion that the green baize was her calling. “After a couple of events, I knew it was worth a try because I thought I could achieve something,” she reveals.
The southpaw, who began serious training at the Madhya Pradesh Snooker and Billiards Academy in Indore from 2011, is quick to credit her seniors. “They (likes of Chitra Magimairaj and Vidya Pillai) are very good to me. Whenever I go to them with doubts, they answer my questions clearly.”
She is unequivocal when talking about whether she has regrets. “Absolutely not,” she says. “Lots of women are doing well in snooker and lots of them have won titles so I really don’t have any regrets at all.”
She may have taken a circuitous path to script a success story but if her upward career trajectory continues in this manner, it won’t be long before she gets her own Wikipedia page!