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Otters Club Amateur 9 Ball Pool Championship 2009
29 March 2009 @ Mumbai
Indian Cue stars eyeing Otters Club's 9-ball Pool jackpot
by Pradeep Vijayakar
Otters Club's famous glass-back squash courts have metamorphosed into an arena for 9-ball Pool of the type one sees at the international events. India's top notches of this branch of cue sport will be seen in action as a jackpot of Rs.1.5 Lakh beckons, the biggest prize for any cue event. Ashok Khemlani, the club president, said the club would go all out to promote 9-ball Pool.
The qualifiers are over and nine joined the round of 32 after
Sunday. One of them was a lucky loser as Otters' Zenul Arsiwala who
had an automatic entry like six of his teammates who were rewarded
for winning the BSAM league, has to go out of town. There are 17
invitees.
So who will win the jackpot? Will it be national champ Rafat Habib
or India's lone torch-bearer in the Guinness Asian Tour last year,
Dharmender Lilly? or two other pool specialists Manan Chandra and
Sumit Talwar? Or snooker artists Yasin Merchant, Aditya Mehta,
Devendra Joshi or Ashok Shandilya?
Lilly had his first round of practice on Sunday. He said, "The
pockets of these tables are 25 per cent bigger than we have for the
Asian Tour. Otters have done wonders for Pool that kind of prize
money (over Rs.8 Lakh) . It's anyone's game. You need to take Pool
seriously. You have to imagine your first shot is your last."
Lilly says Indians just can't compare with the best like Taipei
which has overtaken giants Philippines with 19 world champs. "In
one city in an area of one km by one km there are some 50,000 Pool
tables, one building would have 400 tables. They looked for talent
in the under 13 age group, sent them to US. No wonder they had a
16-year-old world champ."'
Lilly himself had a best finish of No 2 in one of the Tour events in
Malaysia and finished No 8. He has downed seven balls with an
opening break shot. Owing to business problems he took an
eight-month break. He lost in the round of 32 at the Nationals to an
unknown. Where he used to train for eight hours he has had
negligible practice. He says about his rivals, "Manan is gifted.
Habib is steady, that can be a virtue."
Habib, who reached the last 16 of the 1998 Asian Games, says he was
mortified when the Japanese coach said, "Indians have just 50 per
cent power in their shots. Play and play and you will get better."
That's the bottom line for the fledgling sport, and luckily there
are clubs like Otters who will help achieve that goal now that a
start has been made with the ongoing extravaganza which should
capture the imagination of Mumbai's young brigade. Islam Gymkhana
set the ball rolling. State Association had its league and now
Otters are put the icing on the Pool cake.