Double whammy for Sameer

For the third time in a row,Sameer Bhalla kept the standards high as the talented cueist won the senior snooker title for the third year in succession during the 24th Haryana State Billiards...

For the third time in a row,Sameer Bhalla kept the standards high as the talented cueist won the senior snooker title for the third year in succession during the 24th Haryana State Billiards and Snooker Championship at Haryana Billiards,Sector 11,on Wednesday. If that was not enough,he also laid his hands on the senior billiards title on a medal-rich day.

Sameer won his first title of the day when he defeated Ankur Nanda 4-3 in the senior snooker category. He started off with a bang with a break of 44 points in the first frame followed by another break of 32 points. However,Ankur came back strongly in the match and won the next three frames to lead 3-1 in the best of seven frames. Needing just one frame to claim the title,Ankur looked the clear champion but just then Sameer sprang a surprise as he displayed some clever potting to win the three frames and laid his hands on the title. The match swung to and fro but Sameer’s experience of playing in the final came handy.

Fresh with his emphatic win,Sameer started from where he had left in the last match and defeated Himanshu Aggarwal 2-1 in the senior billiards category. Both the players started off catiously and played with safety and were level at 72 in the 150 points frame. Sameer then played an extraordinary canon and got a good position to hit a break of 46 points. He followed with another unfinished break of 32 points and won the frame 150-72. Then in the next frame,Sameer looked at his best while hitting a small breaks of 28,26 and 29 and led with a good margin. Himanshu tried his best to put a break on Sameer’s charge but the seasoned campaigner looked in ominous form and walked away with the match.

Meanwhile,Prateek claimed the junior billiards and snookers category. He first defeated Abhishek in junior billiards and then Nitin in the junior snooker. In the later,he played the whole tournament with good spirit and nice touch,and hit some good odd breaks of 40,38 and 32 to win the title.

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