Cubs Roar in Lucknow

The first ever under 15 "CUBS" Snooker Tournament began today at Oudh Gymkhana Club at Lucknow. A tournament designed totally for the purpose of encouraging the new generation of Pankaj Advani and Geet Sethi, has this year players participating from Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh. Lucknow Cue Sports Association and Cue Sports India joint venture has the youngest entry Shaksham Pandey from Lucknow at age 9 and the oldest Kunal Lamba from Delhi at 14. Players who can just barely reach the table top and have to use the rest every second shot displayed technique that would be a envy of any senior. The potting ability of players like Nikhil Singh (UP), Digvijay (HR), Drishtant Chakravarty (DL), Aniket Gupta (UP) makes one believe that the future of snooker is very bright in India. The discipline, temperament and the game sense shown by all was just unbelievable considering their ages.

In the matches played today Nikhil Singh of Lucknow Cue Sports Academy and Kunal Lamba both toped their groups winning both their league matches. Though Kunal had it easy winning both his matches 2-0, Nikil had to fight hard against Drishtant. Nikhil won the first frame on black indicating that the audience had a battle in their hands. As expected 2nd frame went Drishant’s way and the decider was laid on the table. With just blue, pink and black on the table Nikhil led by 26. But Drishant did not give up and fought his way back into the game by putting 2 snookers which Nikhil was not able to break. He then continued to pot blue and pink and the game was delicately balance on the black. Unfortunately for Drishtant, Nikhil held his nerves and managed to pot the black thus topping his group. The other two who made it into the Semis, which will be played on Sunday at 10 am are Digvijay and Aniket.

Lucknow :: 04 May 2013