Ratchapol's Asian win brings back memories

Asian snooker memories flooded back when one got the news of Thailand's Ratchapol Pu-Ob-Orm winning the Asian snooker title he first won in 1986 in Bangkok when he beat China's Mei Xiwen 7-3 (56-23, 34-88(75), 89(60)-7, 63-43, 77-11, 37-66, 46-78, 57-40, 76-1, 72-33) in the industrial Chinese town of Tangshan Sunday.

I was there in Colombo 1988 when Wattanna won his second Asian title at the Ramada.  He had shown a fluid style, he had a great sense of where he would place the ball and cunning safety play at the age of 18.

One was told that Wattanna was from a wealthy family and would make the pro circuit for which he qualified as an Asian champ (the same way our Aditya Mehta did).

When Om Agarwal went to the pro circuit he could only watch in awe the manner in which Wattanna's entourage would see that he was in the comfort zone so that all he had to do was to go out there and play his best without worrying about anything like transport, hotel, the biting cold and practice facilities. Everything was on a platter and Wattanna showed appreciation of what his family did for him by rising to No 3 in the world twice reaching the pro semis.

Well the wheel of fortune turned. The same Wattanna couldn't stand the competition and lost his place in the top 72 and went out of the circuit. But he wanted to be back and he came back the same way he did the first time around by winning the Asian title. Said Aditya Mehta about Wattanna, "He is still exudes class. At 36, he is still keen on making it back to the top of the pro circuit."

India had a forgettable Asian. Runner-up at Dubai last time around Aditya Mehta lost in the quarters to Au Chi Wai of Hong Kong 5-2 (49-55,78-37,51-38, 59-26, 72-08, 52-81, 83-9). Au had earlier put out India No 1 Manan Chandra 4-2 in the pre-quarters. Brijesh Damani lost in the league stage while national champ Pankaj Advani gave the event a miss owing to family commitments.

As for Au who beat Aditya and Manan, one was reminded of another Hong Kong player, Gary Kwok who won the second Asians in Singapore in 1985 beating Thai title holder Sakchai Simngarm. I had watched that event also and India had three entries. We had four in the last eight ... Geet Sethi, Om Agarwal and Sanjay Sawant. Sanjay lost narrowly to Sakchai after having beaten him in the group stage.
 

Pradeep Vijayakar :: Mumbai

Monday 11 May 2009