World Billiards from today

All the top eight seeds including Mike Russell, Geet Sethi and Peter Gilchrist, will figure only in the third round matches, none of which will be played before Sunday.

All eyes on the opening day will be on unranked former national champion and local lad Rupesh Shah, who plays his first round match against Satish Amarnath, ranked 30 in thischampionship.

Arvind Savur takes on Chandresh Shah, ranked four places higher than him, and, if he wins, comes up against Michael Ferreira, rank 13, in the second round. Savur, who has had both his eyes operated for cataract in the last two years, feels he can beat Shah.

8220;I fancy my chances pretty strongly, I8217;ve never been known for modesty, I think I should beat him,8221; says the 1979-80 Arjun awardee both for billiards and snooker who also for a brief period held the world record for the biggest break of 556.

In what promises to be another interesting match Mukesh Rehani, known to be a temperamental player and a dangerous one on the day he is hitting the ball well, takes on Ahsan-ul-Haque. The winner will meet Chris Shutt, at 20 the youngest player in the championship.

Of the total prize money of 40,000 pounds sterling, the winner takes 10,400, the runners-up 6,400, losing semi-finalists 3,200 each, losing quarter-finalists 1,600 each, losers in last 16 get 800 each, losers in last 24 get 400 eachand the one who gets the highest break of the championship gets a bonus of 800 pounds sterling.

Matches will be played on two tables from 9.30 a.m. to 10.45 p.m.

Opening day8217;s fixtures with rankings in brackets: Ishtmit Malik 32 v Sushrut Pandia, Mukesh Rehani 22 v Ahsan ul Haque, Chandresh Shah 31 v Arvind Savur 35, Peter Sheehan 29 v Dhruv Sitwala, Arun Agrawal 26 v Dinkar Akolkar 33, Satish Amarnath 30 v Rupesh Shah, Manoj Kothari 20 v Aditya Goenka 34. All these matches will be of two hours.

First session of second round matches, to be played in two sessions of two hours each, which will be held on Friday: Nalin Patel 12 v winner of Ishtmit Malik-Sushrut Pandya, Chris Shutt 15 v winner of Mukesh Rehani-Ahsan ul Haque, Eugene Hughes 19 v winner of Peter Sheehan-Dhruv Sitwala, Alok Kumar 14 v winner of Arun Agrawal-Dinkar Akolkar.