Uttar Pradesh State Ranking Billiards & Snooker Tournament 2008

24 August 2008 - Meerut

by I.S. Malik - Media Coordinator

Long last realising his true potential, the law graduate from Allahabad, Young Vinayak Agarwal came upto the expectations of his mentor, Raghoo Sinha and his coach, " Dronacharya Award " winner for his coaching in cue sports, Shri Arvind Savur the Guru of the IBSF World billiards champion, Pankaj Advani at the Alexander Athletic Club here on Sunday evening as the 2008 UP State Seniors billiards & snooker B.L. Arora memorial 5 day tournament came to a successful end.

Vinayak beat another very talented cueist, Abhishek Raj by 4 frames to 2 in the best of seven frames snooker final to a capacity crowd in the Air Conditioned billiards hall by 28-68, 65-33, 44-62,68-14, 55-39 and 56-19 points in a match which saw all the finer points of the game of snooker. May it be the soft roll pots of Abhishek, or the precision potting of Vinayak, the planting of snookers or the art of coming out of the snooker situations was there to see for the very silent and apreciative audience at the venue.

With the frame scores tied at 2-2 it was hard to predict the winner but Vinayak won on this day because if Abhishek' s concentration wavered at the completion of the first four frames, the focus of Vinayak only improved with each passing minute. Eventually he won with assurance as well as a degree of comfort also bagging the 200 ranking points for the winner. Abhishek had to remain content with the runners-up ranking score of a 100 points. Meerut boys Nishit Prakash and Saurabh Chaudhary earned 50 ranking points each as the losing semifinalists. 

Earlier in the semis, while Abhishek after losing the first frame scored a fine 3-1 frames victory over Nishit Prakash by 68-75, 66-21, 62-57 and 59-18 points  in another semifinal, Vinayak beat the talented boy of the hosts, Saurabh Chaudhary by 3-1 frames at 18-63, 56-28, 62-51 and 71-36  almost in an identical fashion to enter the snooker final alongwith Abhishek Raj.

On Saturday in the quarter final matches played,  Vinayak beat his mentor, Raghoo Sinha by 50-40, 69-34, 39-60 and 65-29 points.  Saurabh beat his Meerut mate, Shaizad by 60-36, 65-46 and 60-15 points in straight frames while Nishit Prakash beat Danish Azeem of Moradabad by 60-09, 79-33, 37-47, 11-62 and 55-08 points.

Yet the best match of the tournament  was between the slow and methodical, Abhishek Raj and Malkeet Singh the State Sub-Juniors champion from Lucknow.

Malkeet began in style taking the first frame but Abhishek took the second to restore parity at 1-1. It was here that Malkeet fell to the trap and guile of Abhishek who slowed down the game forcing Malkeet to lapse into errors.  Abhishek then capitalised fully with some neat potting , ball positioning and intelligent safety play to quell the youngsters heroics and win by 31-65, 88-33, 72-41 and 71-48 points.

The highest break in billiards event was earned by Rahul Arora who made a break of 85 and in Snooker it was Imran Khan of Aligarh with his superb effort of 66 who got the special prize.