January 14: Rao, who missed the 1997 Nationals because of jaundice and then the last year's event because of his Degree examinations, could well have gone past the century mark, but for a simple red miss. ``Still I am happy with my form,'' said Rao, who won the match 99-0, 58-14, 99-6, 67-31.Defending champion and top seed Devendra Joshi scored his second successive win with a 4-2 verdict against Aditya Goenka of Rajasthan. Earlier on Tuesday, he beat S Shankar for his first win.
The Asian Games billiards gold medallist Ashok Shandilya of Railways, won two matches in his group. He beat Parambir Singh of Meghalaya 4-0 in the morning and then an erratic Rupesh Shah by the same margin in the evening. Both Shandilya and Shah, essentially billiards players, missed a fair number of easy shots.
Shyam Jagtiani defeated young Omar Balsara 4-1 in the morning and then won 4-1 against Sanjay Bisht in the evening. Balsara beat Neeraj Kumar 4-1 in the evening, while S B Agarwal, who had breaks of 47 and 51 in the first and fourth frames, won 4-0 against Sanjeev Gupta.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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