Red carpet was rolled out for Geet Sethi and Pankaj Advani as they arrived in Agra to take part in the 2009 Indian National Billiards & Snooker Championships on Saturday.

While Sethi, the 8 times World billiards champion appeared moved by the warmth and appreciation extended by the hosts, Advani who came later was greeted by school children of the Dr MPS Group of Institutions waving flags as he came on view.

Other stars like, Dhruv Sitwala, Devendra Joshi, Alok Kumar, Sourav Kothari and the points format IBSF World billiards champion of 2007, Rupesh Shah were expected to join in on Sunday when Senior Billiards event commences 10:00 am.

In the billiards Juniors league of top four, Shahbaz Adil Khan of Kolkata who works for Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB) was right on cue in both the events of billiards as well as snooker in the junior (under 21 years) category as he fired break over break in his billiards match to outplay Dhvaj Haria by 1191-446 points in a three hour match. In another close encounter, Mundir Shirazi of Karnataka get past Aditya Agarwal of Maharashtra by 795-770 points.

In snooker, Shahbaz was right on cue handing out a drubbing to Sahil Sharma of Punjab by 3-0 frames. Aditya Agarwal put it across Prateek of Haryana by 3-1 frames, Mundir Sherazi was good enough for Mukesh Kapahi beating him by 3-0 frames while Vidit Gawri of J&K, the state mate of Mukesh had to strain hard to get the better of Shobhit Pandey of Uttar Pradesh by 3-2 frames.

... contd.