90th National Snooker and Billiards Championship: TN cueists shine in national tourney
CHENNAI: The 90th National Snooker and Billiards Championship, Chennai became a stage for the cueists from the state to shine as Tamil Nadu players showed promise with their significant achievements in the green baize.
Varun Kumar, for example, was the highlight on the last day of the championship as defeated defending champion Manan Chandra (PSPB) in the Masters snooker semi-finals. Manan took the first three frames in the best-of-seven game, but Varun came back strong to win the game by 4-1.
“All the youngsters and juniors from our state had a good performance in the nationals. It is very special to play the nationals in our hometown,” said Varun, who lost the final to Rajat Khanega (HAR) 4-3. He was not the first to make headlines from the state.
Ace cueist Anupama Ramachandran, who won the silver in 6-red women’s snooker in the IBSF world championship held at Doha last month, bagged her first national title. She won the women’s billiard title by beating Amee Kamani from Madhya Pradesh. The victory was sweeter as the local cueist lost both the 6-red snooker and 15-red snooker finals to Amee earlier in the tournament. Abdul Saif (TN) won the sub-junior boys snooker.
Tamil Nadu’s L Shruthi bagged the junior girls billiards title and won bronze in sub-junior girls billiards. Jabez Naveen Kumar and Laxmi Narayanan won the bronze medal in sub-junior snooker. Snenthra Babu and RT Mohitha won bronze in junior billiards. S Shrikrishna also proved his talent at the national championship. In the senior billiard pre-quarterfinals, he gave a tough fight to the 26-time IBSF World billiard champion Pankaj Advani.
BG Muralidharan, TNBSA president, is thrilled with the results the state association has had so far. However, he wants to focus on doing well in the snooker events. “We got four out of fifteen titles. Our state players gave their best, but we need to concentrate on the snooker events. Hopefully, we are aiming for more titles in the coming tournaments,” he told this daily.
They might not have won everything there is in this tournament, but the success TN cueists had will be a stepping stone to build on for the up-and-coming players from the state going forward.