Siddharth,Rahul in snooker doubles final

Earlier,Abhishek and Andrews combine had notched up a hard fought three frames victory by out potting the favourite duo of Tayyab and Urfi by 26-68,63-54 and 63-49 points which was actually much more closely contested than the scores actually suggest.

Even as the snooker doubles reached the final stage,the sedate event of billiards began with a bang producing two upsets at the very outset. Malkeet Singh the state juniors’ champion,despite making a break of 74 in the very first scoring visit lost to a determined,Surya Dev Singh by 200-189 points in a 200 up game and then Tayyab humbled the veteran cueist,Ishtmit Singh Malik by 200-174 points playing rather too well for Malik’s liking who struggled to find his “once upon a time famed touch.” Although,Malik did give glimpses of his billiards prowess,Tayyab countered his every move,surprisingly even the safety tactics chalking up breaks of 33 and 28 points on course to his brilliant triumph.

In other matches played on Saturday,talented cueist,Gaurav Nathani notched up four victories to enter the finals. First he beat his parlour mate from Pool Palace,Siddarth Mehra by 200-82 points and then outplayed Sachivalaya sports club’s Nishikant by 200-120 but the best was reserved for his quarter-final encounter with Sachivalaya’s champion player,Asif Khan defeating him also with consummate ease by 200-157 points. To top it all,he beat his parlour mate Aayush Agarwal in the semis by 200-148 points to reach the summit where he will play M Tayyab who took his rightful place in the billiards final with a convincing victory over S N Tripathi by 200-174 points.

Monday’s fixtures (All finals):
Gaurav Nathani vs Mohammad Tayyab (Billiards final to be held at 12.00 noon);
Malkeet Singh and Ishtmit Singh Malik vs Rahul and Siddarth Mehra (Snooker doubles final at 1:30 pm);
Vaibhav vs M Yousuf ( Snooker singles final; at 3.30 pm).