India's number one female cueist Vidya Pillai has regained the national snooker title after scoring a convincing victory over defending champion Meenal Thakur. Tamil Nadu's Pillai won the best of seven frames final 4-2 in a little over three and half hours encounter at PYC Hindu Gymkhana. The four-time champion Pillai,who lost the crown last year,defeated Maharashtra's Thakur 48-38 36-72 32-55 62-50 72-11 78-10 in the ladies summit clash. Meenal's sister Anuja Chandra finished third,defeating Arantxa Sanchis 23-31 59-32 52-43 in the play-off match. The first three frames of the summit clash lacked the thrill of a final as both players garnered points at slow pace. Pillai won the first 48-38 while Thakur won the subsequent two frames 72-36,55-32. In the fourth frame,Pillai found her lost focus and scored a break of 25 and 19 to open up a lead of 55-0. After that she added seven more points to her score and Thakur conceded the frame at 62-15. In the fifth and sixth frames,the Chennai lady displayed fine potting skills by occupying the cue table for most of the time. She opened up a 44-11 lead in the fifth thanks to a 27 point break and sealed the sixth frame with another 22 break. In the men's snooker qualifying rounds,Shyam Jagtiani,R Girish and Pushpinder Singh won their respective first round league encounters. Pushpinder trounced Manish Jain 3-0,while Jagtiani outplayed J Varun Kumar 3-1. Raj Kumar managed to scrap past Vijay Goel 3-2.
