Russell’s 1137 gives him title

Having beaten Geet Sethi in the semi-final on Friday,much was expected from Gilchrist but nothing went in favour of the Singapore-based Englishman as Russell dominated the table from the beginning.

Opening with a break of 281 and following it up with 324,Russell made his intentions clear. He maintained a big lead leaving Gilchrist with no answer.

Russell continued to keep the balls at the top table with canons and red-pots with great ease. Even when in-offs were scored,Russell would get back to the scoring area to continue with his assault and soon he crossed the 1000-mark. When he finally left the table at 1137,Gilchrist looked in no mood to give a fight.

And Russell lapped up the chance with at 735,something that even his opponent wouldn’t have expected to come off his cue after he played a marathon break only a few minutes ago. His 700-plus ended all resilience. The only other thing left to find out was if Russell would better Geet Sethi’s all-time World Championship record of scoring 4846 in a six-hour match. Geet had beaten Joe Grech of Malta in 1987 at Belfast,4846-3256 to win the title. This was perhaps the only thing that salvaged some pride for the Indians at the Pune championship.

Result: Final: Mike Russell (Eng) beat Peter Gilchrist (Sin) 4120 (281,324,68,420,88,265,62,1137,735,176,439)-784 (192,124,70,56,124).