Joshi jostles out Kothari, in semis

Joshi jostles out Kothari, in semis
S Mageshwaran

Bangalore, Feb 10: Alok Kumar, Ashok Shandilya, Devendra Joshi and Balachandra Bhaskar booked their semi-final berths in the Lachmandas V Kalro 66th Senior National billiards championship. At the KSBA Hall on Thursday, Shandilya rode his luck in the pre-quarterfinals against wily Subash Agrawal. But in the quarter-final encounter against Rupesh Shah, the Asian Games gold medallist left nothing to chance, recording a comfortable 1275-695 win.

The other last four entrants were on a song with Joshi recording a day's best of 300 en route to his 1262-847 win over Manoj Kothari. Joshi will take on Karnataka's Bhaskar, who registered an unfinished 266 in his pre-quarterfinal engagement against Dhruv Sitwala and continued the good form while beating Yasin Merchant 1370-725.

Alok Kumar, the defending champion was a run away 1386-797 victor against National Pool champion Dharmender Lilly.

The Shah-Shandilya encounter was billed the final before the final. The form of the former and the fortuitous run of thelatter justified any such billing. But only till Shandilya started the match with a 84 on his opening visit, complementing it with a 97 on his third, a 88 on his 12th and a 110 on his 17th visit, to seize control of the match. A 100 on his 21st visit and a 118 on his 25th put Shandilya in a position to rest and relax, with the 1079-283 lead he had built by then.

Live on DD: The two semifinals and finals will be telecast live on DD Sports channel. The semifinal telecast will start at 10 am on Friday and continue till 6 pm. The final on Saturday will be telecast from 9.30 am till 2 pm.

Semifinal line-up: Alok Kumar (Pun) vs Ashok Shandilya (Rlys); Devendra Joshi (Mah) vs B Bhaskar (Kar).

Results

Quarterfinals: Ashok Shandilya (Rlys) bt Rupesh Shah (Guj) 1275-695; Alok Kumar (Pun) bt Dharmendra Lilly (Pun) 1386-797; Devendra Joshi (Mah) bt Manoj Kothari (WB) 1262-847; B Bhaskar (Kar) bt Yasin Merchant (Mah) 1370-725.

PQF: Shandilya (Rlys) bt Subash Agrawal (Rlys) 662-655;Alok (Pun) bt Varun Taneja (Rlys) 677-509; Lilly (Pun) bt Amit Sharma (Del) 767-509; Shah (Guj) bt IH Manudev (Kar) 783-418; Merchant (Mah) bt Mohammed Asim (WB) 658-466; Joshi (Mah) bt Pankaj Advani (Kar) 872-487; Bhaskar (Kar) bt Dhruv Sitwala (Mah) 663-346; Kothari (WB) bt JS Dawar (Mah) 663-528.