Rawat admits his weakness in billiards

“Actually it is not my game. I am a snooker player. I play billiards in my age level category because the players are not that competitive and it is easy to win championships. But when it comes to the senior level,I just don’t want to meddle with them. It doesn’t mean that I am low on confidence but it is a personal choice and somehow it also distracts me from playing snooker,” he says.

Technically speaking,he has valid reasons for not opting to play billiards. Snooker demands a lot of potting,while billiards is more to do with keeping the ball alive. Rawat says that it helps to master potting which is crucial in snooker but the other contradicts the entire point. He says,“Potting is fine but when you don’t do it for longer intervals,it starts effecting your snooker touch.”

Rawat is gearing up for the cue sports nationals scheduled to take place in Pune in January 2012. But before he puts his step forward to the Pune event,he believes that Delhi State Championship is a launch pad to succeed at the National level. “You can see that India’s top ranked snooker players are fortunately from Delhi and surrounding states. This means that round the year besides the Delhi circuit,we are playing each other which helps us to improve at every step. So I am sure a win here or a top four finish would really boost my chances at the National event,” Rawat adds.

In the senior category,he is seeded 8 th and is scheduled to play his first match on November 24. However,all the top seeds have been put to test on the same date. But despite being the top seed in the juniors and one among the top seed in the seniors too,he says that his seeding got affected due to DSBA’s last year glitch when they failed to organise the senior championships. So the gap has amounted to re-seeding of the cueists,meaning good players are drawn against each other in initial rounds.

“Usually the first few games are easy so there is hardly any pressure but I am sure with all the top cueists in the fray,it will be a good learning experience,” Rawat says of the challenge ahead.