Bhopal: The 22-year-old woman cueist from Karnataka, Varshaa Sanjeev, snatched the title from the defending Billiards National Ladies’ Champion from Madhya Pradesh, Amee Kamani, in four games by 75-32, 75-19, 25-75 & 75-45 in the best of three 75 points in final of national ladies’ billiards championship on Wednesday . The 88th Billiards and Snooker Championship is being held in the state capital.
The match officiated by International Referee, Ishtmit Singh Malik, was expected to be a humdinger as both the ladies were in good form.
Varsha playing with calm assurance in less than two-hour long match, set the ball rolling by pocketing the first two games with consummate ease.
However, taking a small break midway, Amee played some great red pots for a break of 40, followed by tactical moves to wrest the third game, closing the gap to 1-2.
Varshaa keeping her cool, exhibited delightful in-offs to clinch the fourth game, the match and the title comfortably.
Apart from the winning match, several interesting matches were on show on Wednesday morning in the double elimination stage, from the winners group, 12 players qualifying for the main round of the snooker event.
Twelve more qualifiers are scheduled to be held from Thursday.
Ryan Razmi of Maharashtra had to struggle to override Vinayak Agarwal of Uttar Pradesh before running out a winner by to make it to the main draw.
Posting a break of 70 in the second frame, Vinayak looked all set to win when he took the second and third frames.
Nevertheless, three costly misses by Vinayak, which allowed Razmi to stage a comeback victory by wresting the fourth and fifth frames.
However Vinayak's state mate and UP champion, Ayush Mittal kept up his nerve to get the better of Gujarat's Karmesh Patel by three frames to two emerging victorious to also enter the main draw of snooker.
Among other winners were the two stalwarts from Railways Sports Promotion Board, Faisal Khan and Rafath Habib who made the grade with their straight three frames victories over Vishwajeet Mohan of Uttar Pradesh and M L Lakshman of Karnataka respectively.
