Sethi, Bhaskar in final

CALCUTTA, January 9: Geet Sethi took his appointed place in the final of the 64th National Billiards Championships even as Ashok Shandilya was shown the exit by unfancied B Bhaskar of Karnataka.

Shandilya, who ended as runner-up to Joe Greche in the amateur World Billiards Championships at Malta recently, just faded away after Bhaskar secured a big break of 165 in his 19th visit. Shandilya was nowhere in the picture after that even as Bhaskar continued to get 40 to 50 points on each visits. Bhaskar finished with 1344 against Shandilya’s 969. For the Karnataka player, this will be his first final in any form of championships.

The game started off with all indications of Shandilya routing his opponent. Rather, by the ninth visit, the favourite had opened up a 200-point lead. However, Bhaskar came back strongly with a break of 98 in the 10th. By the 12th visit, they were neck-and-neck with Bhaskar notching up a 112 in the 12th which left Shandilya’s 80 in the visit in shadow.

In the second semi-final, GeetSethi played “mediocre billiards”, yet that was good enough to trounce qualifier Shyam Jagtiani by a margin of 1000 points. Sethi had 1813 in the four hours while Jagtiani of Railways could manage only 813.