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National Billiards & Snooker Championship 2008 - Indore
Yeshwant Club
Race Course Road - Indore - 452 003 - Madhya Pradesh
24 November 2008
Keerat Bhandaal is promising
By I.S. Malik
Eighteen year old talented, girl from Mumbai, Arantxa Sanchez, continued to dominate the proceedings even as the ladies events of the 2008 Nationals billiards & snooker entered the third day here at the Yeshhwant Club on Monday.
Although the Seniors snooker event of the 23 days competition being played, matches were very much on, still the spotlight remained on the ladies section as the young girls on view not only impressed but in fact taught a few lessons on how to play cue sports.
Arantxa Sanchez added yet another crown to her double achieved earlier in the billiards section of the ladies Sub-Juniors & Juniors ladies by winning the Sub-juniors title in snooker as well. She also reached the final of the Juniors snooker too.
Nevertheless, the barely 13 year old frail looking girl from Delhi, Keerat Bhandaal was the one who was the cynosure of all eyes. A child prodigy who has the perfect basics of the game, the correct stance, the right timing and a superb cue-delivery is the future of the chequered game of cue sports in the country. A slip of a girl who has the temperament, the positive approach and more importantly, the intrinsic qualities of a great sportswoman is the brightest outcome of this nationals to say the least.
Coming to the score line of the matches, Arantxa Sanchez beat Keerat Bhandaal in the final of the ladies Sub – Juniors snooker by two frames to nil to take the title in the Sub-Juniors section of the ladies. Earlier in the quarter finals of the Juniors ladies snooker, in a match of the evening, another girl from Maharashtra, Shireen Limaye was quite impressive as she pot blacked the pretty lady from Uttar Pradesh, Khushi Fatima Tauqeer in three frames in a match where having potted a superb pink ball on the colours stage of the decider she was expected to seal the match but Khushi faltered on the decisive black ball and Shireen sank a good black to wrest the frame and match.
In the semifinals, First Arantxa Sanchez of Maharashtra, beat Keerat Bhandaal of Delhi in three frames by 41-29, 26-28 and 73-32 points in a tie which saw Keerat rally back strongly from a 0-1 deficit to take the second frame but Arantxa was a bit too good in the final frame with two good breaks of 22 and 21to put the issue beyond doubt. The other semifinal saw a resurgent, Shireen who has grown and improved by leaps and bounds knocked out Delhi's Shivani Agarwal in straight frames by 55-44 and 50-31 points.
In the Ladies Juniors Snooker final, however, Shireen came up against a wall as the 18 year old genius from Mumbai, Arantxa Sanchez was in her true element potting with felicity and grace to easily bag the title with a break of 25 in the opening frame. Arantxa won by 56-27 and 43-40 points. Even so had Shireen not lapsed on the black in the second frame the story had every possibility to be otherwise.