BANGALORE, February 19: National coaches Michael Ferreira and Arvind Savur could not have asked for a more exciting climax to the second preparatory billiards and snooker camp for the Asian Games '98. For the winners of in both the sections of the IFB-Second National billiards and snooker tournament, the intra-camp tourney for the probables, were decided only by using the frame-difference criterion on the final day of the camp on Thursday.Former National champion Ashok Shandilya of Railways pipped former world matchplay runner-up Devendra Joshi of Maharashtra to annex the billiards title, while Joshi's state-mate former Asian champion Yasin Merchant edged out Tamil Nadu's Rafat Habib to emerge the winner in the snooker section.
The snooker section took away the cake for providing the most thrilling action of the day as Merchant entered his last match in the eight-man league in a must-win position. His 4-1 win over the 26-year-old Tamil Nadu player helped him join Rafat Habib on top of the table with sixwins each. His better frame difference 14 as against Habib's 8 won him the title.
In billiards, Shandilya was in a similar position as Merchant, needing to win his last league encounter against Arun Agarwal. The 30-year-old burly Railways cueist won the match with consummate ease and thus locked himself with Joshi with eight wins apiece in the nine-man league. Joshi notched up a frame difference of 15, but was pipped by Shandilya's who had a frame difference of 18 after his win against Agarwal.
RESULTS
Billiards: Nalin Patel bt Prem Prakash 98-150, 150-36, 150-33, 150-14; Geet Sethi bt B Bhaskar 150-99, 150-71, 136-150, 150-119; Nalin Patel bt Mukesh Rehani 150-73, 151-0, 131-151, 150-79; Ashok Shandilya bt Arun Agarwal 150-131, 151-4, 150-0; Arvind Savur bt Manoj Kothari 150-27, 150-131, 150-34.
Snooker: Devendra Joshi bt Alok Kumar 89-23, 82-8, 74-52, 103-0; Yasin Merchant bt Ashok Shandilya 44-82, 61-36, 55-24, 25-43, 80-0, 80-0; Rafat Habib bt Manan Chandra 14-69, 44-68,66-16, 66-27, 12-55, 68-8, 74-23; Rafat Habib bt Devendra Joshi 73-40, 38-62, 54-65, 79-41, 68-30, 92-10; Yasin Merchant bt Devendra Joshi 92-19, 65-0, 110-6, 71-77, 68-13; Yasin Merchant bt Rafat Habib 95-24, 55-28, 7-80, 69-44 72-42.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
