Sethi strings fourth world title on cue of success

Wary of each other, both Sethi and Russell were overcautious in the first session, especially the former who was unable to convert even one of his 50-plus breaks (99, 78, 68, 88) into a century.

Russell had breaks of 165, 80 and 275 — though the last was marred, luckily for him, by a foul which nobody noticed — in the first session which ended with him leading by 76 points.

During his 275 break, Russell potted the red off the spot twice when he had just crossed the double century mark, but the referee, instead putting it in the centre of the table, put itright back on the spot.

However, it did not prove too expensive for Sethi as he went on to win the championship. But he was shocked, for even he had not noticed it, when mediapersons informed him later in the post-match conference. “My God, it might have cost me the match,” he exclaimed.

Sethi was on an unfinished break of 33 at the end of the first session, and more importantly in a favourable position for the floating white.

He made the best of it when he resumed after the break to build upon it and got the biggest break of the match, 302. He had two flukes when he was on 215. He went for a pot red, first in the centre pocket and then in the top one, missed both times and both times his white travelled on to kiss Russell’s yellow, making it two fluke cannons in a row.

He wasn’t so lucky the third time when he missed a red in-off at top table, but the break of 302 had put him 189-up, not a very safe lead at the beginning of the second session. And like in the first, fortunes kept fluctuating, withRussell getting 104 and 74 before getting a 201 to take a marginal lead of 58 points.

Both missed innumerable chances, mostly pot reds at the top, as pressure mounted. Only 20 minutes remained and still it was anybody’s match.

Then Sethi came up with two breaks of 167 and 201 which clinched the match for him. With seven minutes to go and trailing by 310 points, Russell had no chance of pulling it off. And when Sethi missed a red pot off the spot on 201, Russell still could not capitalise on it. Sethi ended up making another 82 to win by a margin of 385 points.

He finished with an average of 66.7, while Russell’s was 33.9. Russell, though, had the consolation of bagging the 800 pounds sterling prize for the highest break of the Championship, his 489 against Robby Foldvari in the semi-finals. Sethi took the winner’s cheque of 10,400 pounds sterling and Russell received a cheque of 6,400 pounds sterling.

Completely drained, but happy, Sethi said, “the crowd pressure acted both ways: the expectationswere very high, but at the table their applause at everything I did really lifted me.”

He said in terms of quality of play, the victory did not rank alongside the other three world titles he had won, “as neither of us were firing on all cylinders but in terms of sheer excitement — the match was still open 20 minutes before the end — it was definitely as good as those”.

Russell said he was finding it very difficult to get keyed up for a match. “The match I was most keyed up for was the one against Chris Shutt, I cued well only against him. Complacency is not the word, but somehow I can’t seem to get up for a match.”

“I should have done a lot better in the first session, because when Sethi gets going he doesn’t leave you anything, and when he does it’s very difficult. He contrives shots from nowhere. It was just not my day,” he added

RESULT

Final:

Geet Sethi bt Mike Russell 1400 (99, 78, 68, 88, 302, 86, 167, 201, 82)-1015 (165, 80, 275, 104, 74, 201).