Dhruv Sitwala entered the last eight of the 3rd National Three Cushion Carombole Championship at the DDA complex in Delhi on Monday beating Delhi's Vivek Pathak who works for BSNL, 9-3. He now takes on Manan Chandra who beat Sunny Solanki 20-8. Dharmender Lilly and Alok Kumar had identical 14-6 wins over Divya Sharma and Akshay. Rupesh Shah and Sumit Talwar gave walk-overs.

How tough the game is can be judged from the fact that neither player scored after 13 visits. India cue great Shyam Shroff once went to the US to try his hand at carom but came back mortified, just not able to make any headway. Said Sitwala, "I played Carom two years ago losing to Kamal Chawla at the Nationals. The cue is different, the ball is one-and-a- half times bigger, the table is bigger than the pool table and the throw of the cushions is different with the angle being unpredictable."

Said Pathak, about Carom, "The conditions could be better. There is just one table at the Nationals. There are just two others in the entire country. The throw is the table is such that at best four-cushion canons are possible. Abroad the run of the tables is such that eight cushion canons can be played.''

Carom is the fourth branch of cue sport and most unsung, unknown and neglected one. It is pocket-less billiards and the most difficult because a shot is counted only if you hit a three-cushion canon (hand-ball hits three cushions before touching object ball. In billiards the canon is direct). Carom is an Asian Games sport but India hasn't taken it seriously with few states having tables, and Mumbai having none though it could appeal to its players who are adept at billiards.