National Billiards & Snooker Championship 2008 - Indore

 

Yeshwant Club

Race Course Road - Indore - 452 003 - Madhya Pradesh

 

23 November 2008

 

 

Aranxta Sanchis - the Indian Billiards Princess
By I.S. Malik

 

Small and petite, 18 year old, Aranxta Sanchis, a second year student of the four year degree course in Information Technology at the St. Francis Institute of Technology, Mumbai lifted both the inaugural Sub-Juniors and the Juniors billiards title in the Ladies section of the 2008 National billiards & snooker championship here at the Yeshwant Club, Indore even as the 23days competition entered its 15th day on Sunday evening. 
 

Playing with the grace and style of a true champion this frail looking dynamite is a bagful of potential as she cued away to glory at the expense of another very talented girl from Bhuveneshwar, Priyanka Agarwal in the finals of both the Sub-Juniors and the Juniors section of the Ladies event which commenced today. The ladies proved that as in other fields, they are very much stronger in cue sports too. Hardly an half hour separated the finals of the two sections and yet both the finalists never showed even an iota of tiredness after being played 8 matches in row by both of them in a day. A commendable attribute under any circumstances. 
 

Displaying a confident array of strokes, be it the spot potting of the red from the red spot, a long losing hazard (long in-off’s) drop cannons or even the wily application of tactics whenever she chose to play a safe shot, truly she was the master of every situation. Priyanka did put up a fight but on this day she was always up against a wall as Aranxta played with a fluency of cue-delivery, a rhythm to match and the selection of shots too was precise and positive. Winning the Juniors ladies title by 199 -81, the little princess also chalked up a splendid unfinished break of 31 in the process. 
 

As in the Juniors, earlier on Aranxta proved too good for Priyanka in the Sub-Juniors as well winning the one-hour final by 174-84 points. Even in this clash of the two topmost girls of the country, she was crisp in potting, fluent in her in-offs and confident in the drop cannons. Actually Priyanka appeared to lack the will to fight which was her undoing for in the strokes of the game she could almost match the victory. Both the lady cueists have a great future ahead of them that is for sure. 
 

Earlier in the semifinals, Priyanka had downed Akansha Singh of Andhra Pradesh while the same state’s Esther Buela who had easily beaten by Priyanka in the Sub-juniors section ran into the rampaging marauder in the shape of Aranxta Sanchez. Priyanka won her match with Akansha by 142-68 points whereas Aranxta won against Keerat Bhandal of Delhi by 131-92 points in the semifinals in the Juniors section. In the Sub- juniors section Aranxta had won the semifinals against Sania Arif of Chandigarh while Priyanka had got the better of Esther Buela of Andhra Pradesh.
 

The noteworthy thing about today's ladies matches were that they relegated the Mens snooker section to the background not only with their fine display but the fact that the girls showed more pluck, grit and determination. Not without reason the female form is worshipped as Kali, Shakti, Laxmi and Saraswati for they are the true embodiments of grace, poise and a sense of camaderie much more than their male counterparts for sure.

 

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