Sweet win for Honey Bhalla

CHANDIGARH, Dec 28: Honey Bhalla lived up to his reputation by overcoming young Saurav Khatter in the snooker quarter-final match of the ...

CHANDIGARH, Dec 28: Honey Bhalla lived up to his reputation by overcoming young Saurav Khatter in the snooker quarter-final match of the Haryana State Billiards and Snooker Championships at the Cannon Ball Basement in Sector 37 here today. Bhalla won 43-35, 58-38, 38-58, 36-57, 47-25.

Honey won the first two frames with relative ease. Fighting back in style, Saurav delighted the corwd with fine potting and brought the score at level by capturing the next two frames. Honey kept his cool in the fifth frame and played cautious snooker to maintain his slender lead all through and won the frame and the match.

Earlier, Anil Sharma extricated himself from the jaws of defeat against Raju Sian in the open snooker event. Anil began on a brisk note and captured the first frame virtually without unchallenged at 76-25. Spirited Raju bounced back with a bang and played fine game to win the next two frames comfortably at 56-34, 47-27.

In the fourth frame, Raju kept up the pressure by leading by 15 points in the beginning. However, Anil mustered all his experience and got his game going to equalise the score two-all 47-27. The last frame was a thriller. Anil displayed his touch of class and gained a 24-point lead at the end of red balls. Then Raju started potting the coloured balls one by one and kept pressing. Raju was unfortunate as he foulded at the curcial moments to lose the frame at 46-56 and the match.

At the YMCA Hall in Sector 11, Anil also marched into the semi-final stage of the open billiards competitions. He outclassed RC Sharma with a huge margin 410-245.

In the semi-final Anil is pitted against Honey Bhalla in snooker and Rakesh Gupta in billiards whereas Deepak Goel takes on Sunny Bhalla in snooker and Lalit in billiards.

Judo participation
A seven-member Chandigarh judo team, fielded by L V Seghal group of the Amateur Judo Association of Chandigarh, was allowed to compete in the Junior Federation Cup Championship held in Hardwar Uttar Pradesh. However, the city judokas could not finish among the medallists.