MUMBAI, JUNE 30: It doesn't get bigger than this. But for the competition-starved cue players in the country it cannot get smaller than this either. Into it's fifth year and the Alpic Om Agrawal Billiards and Snooker tournament has become the one-off tournament of the calendar apart from the Nationals where the cream of Indian players of the green baise, not to forget a few of international repute can be seen in action.While the list of Indian players seems endless, among those from foreign soil are World No.3 Peter Gilchrist and Thailand's National champion Praput. The latter especially will be baying for the Indians after being given a tough time during the Bangkok Asiad.
Apart from the Thai, the man to watch at the Rs four lakh tourney which gets under way at the Garware Club House here from tomorrow would be Asiad double gold medallist Ashok Shandilya. Geet Sethi, the World No.1 and defending billiards champion here will have plenty to worry from the burly Mumbai cueist who seems to have broken theAhmedabad businessman's magic spell with a victory over him at the Asiad final.
However Sethi would not have much trouble with his league matches, having drawn an easy Group which includes Nalin Patel, M Kothari and Antim Singhi, the latter having qualified from the Garware Club House tournament -- a prelude to Alpic-Om Agrawal.
Shandilya too doesn't seem to have a much difficult league. His only trouble will be the lanky Gilchrist who also lists in Group B with Michael Ferreira and qualifier Shyam Jagtiani.
The players, divided into four Groups will play their round robin league matches, with the top two players from each group moving into the knockout stage.
The snooker draw is more crowded with five players in each group and the line-up is sure to whip up more interest. It remains to be seen wether defending champion Yasin Merchant manages an encore. The bespectacled snookerist had a dream run last year and would like to pocket the Rs 45,000 winner's cheque, especially after failing to clinch tophonours at Bangkok.
Draws
Billiards-- Group A: Geet Sethi, Nalin Patel, M Kothari, Antim Singhi; Group B: Peter Gilchrist, Ashok Shandilya, Michael Ferreira, Shyam Jagtiani; Group C: Alok Kumar, C Praput, Arun Agrawal, CH Shah; Group D: Devendra Joshi, Subhash Agrawal, M Asim, Varun Taneja.
Snooker-- Group A: Yasin Merchant, Sarang Shroff, M Shehab, Geet Sethi; Shakeel Ahmed; Group B: Peter Gilchrist, R Jagtiani, Alok Kumar, Jitender Singh Dawar, Manan Chandra; Group C: C Praput, Siddharth Rao, Devendra Joshi, H Gandhi, Amit Saboo; Group D: Ashok Shandilya, Dharmender Lilly, MJ Sultan, Subhash Agrawal, R Thukral.
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
Printer-friendly page