NEW DELHI, JAN 28: Ashok Shandilya may have registered his sixth win in a row over Geet Sethi, but he still cannot get over the awe he has for the man, who has won the Nationals seven times, the world pro title four times and the world amateur crown twice. At the Salora National billiards title, Shandilya, who had stunned Sethi in the Asian Games final defeated him 929-869 to set himself up for a double he has been yearning for long.``I may have beaten him a few times, actually it is now six times in a row starting from four times in the Asian Games camp, but he (Geet) is one of the greatest billiards players. He is too classy. I was lucky he did not find his touch,'' said Shandilya, who is modest to a fault.The Railways player will now clash the in-form Alok Kumar, who outclassed Arun Agrawal 1114-714 in another quarter-final.
Alok Kumar was in good form and dominated the match against Arun Agrawal. His good breaks came on the third (74), sixth (85), 17th (99) and 26th (172) and 29th (98). Agrawal'sbest was 71 on the 34th visit.
Earlier, B Bhaskar despite arriving late by five minutes for which he was penalised 100 points managed to beat Arvind Savur 689-606. In the other pre-quarters, Devendra Joshi beat Simachalam 531-466, Mohd Asim beat Nitin Kohli 492-409 and Prem Prakash beat Harish Gandhi 614-524.
In the junior section, top seed Manan Chandra took a vital step in the direction of winning the snooker title, by beating his main rival Rishabh Thukral 4-3. Manan rallied from being two frames down to win 49-61, 12-65, 83-39, 69-52, 85-39, 63-31. Earlier Manan beat Ritesh Shah 4-3.
On Friday he has to play his last match against Neeraj Kumar which he should win on current form and that will give him the title.
In billiards Omar Balsara won his semi-final league match beating V Sanghvi 1039-599.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
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