Rupesh back with a bang

But on his third visit Rupesh got into the groove and made a break of 86 points to jump into lead and then gradually kept increasing it till he won 561-312, with further breaks of 134, 97 and 74. Amarnath, on the other hand, was unable to get even a single half-century.

Averaging only 18.7, Rupesh later said he was not altogether satisfied with hisperformance. 8220;It was only my first match in a big tournament in a long time and it was difficult for me to get my rhythm and concentration. In practice over the last two days I have been getting breaks of 300 but today I had only one century.8221;

He said the table at the venue was much faster than the one at the Sports Club where he practices and it took him some time to adjust to its speed. He now has to face Bob Close, at 63 the oldest player in the tournament and ranked 9, in the second round. 8220;Against Bob Close I8217;ll have to play much better than today if I have to win,8221; said Rupesh.

Of all the mundane matches, the closest one was won by a margin of 129. Chandresh Shah of Mumbai defeated Arvind Savur 648-519. Shah had breaks of 113, 95 and 66 in 44 visits, averaging 14.7, while Savur8217;s highest break was 96. He had two other half-century breaks but averaged only 11.8.

In a pathetic display of billiards, altogether outrageous at a World Championship, Ishtmit Malik of Lucknow and Sushrut Pandia ofMumbai between them made 144 visits to the table in 120 minutes the first round matches being of two hours each with a strike rate of 8.1 and 3.5 per visit. In that dubious sense the most consistent match of the day.

Malik, whose highest break was 36, won the match 582-250 against Pandia, whose highest break was 27. Pandia managed to cross double figures only nine times out of 72 visits.

Mukesh Rehani of Delhi mauled Ahsan ul Haque from Orissa by 543 points in the most lop-sided match of the day. Though Rehani did not have a century break, he had five 50-plus ones and scored at a tremendous pace, scaling 425 points in just one hour. His final score of 824, as against 281 of Ahsan, was the highest of the day.

Peter Sheehan of England was not far behind with 794 and was the only one to get three century breaks. In the opening match of the day against Dhruv Sitwala, Sheehan took a long while to get his game going, getting only 104 from his first 16 visits.

But on his 17th he scored a brilliant 105 injust six minutes which worked wonders for his confidence, and he followed that up with breaks of 82, 120, 97 and 101. Sitwala could manage a lone 52 and lost 348-794.

RESULTS

Peter Sheehan bt Dhruv Sitwala 794 105, 82,120,97, 101-348 52; Ishtmit Malik bt Sushrut Pandia 582-250; Arun Agrawal bt Dinkar Akolkar 730 68, 74, 90, 66, 82-377; Rupesh Shah bt Satish Amarnath 561 86, 134, 97, 74-312; Mukesh Rehani bt Ahsan ul Haque 824 80, 57, 50, 70, 97-281; Chandresh Shah bt Arvind Savur 648 113, 95, 66-519 96, 64.