Vishal Gehani (handicap -270) of Park Club maintained the winning momentum and eased past Anurag Bagri (-270) of ECC, romping to a 250-153 win in the race-to-250 points round of 16 match of the SPG-PCL Billiards Tournament 2022, and played at the Park Club billiards halls. Gehani had two good runs of 51 and 78.
However, another home challenger Amit Sapru’s (-220) of Shivaji Park Gymkhana had a disappointing day and went down tamely to Akshay Gogri (-200) losing 39-250 in another last 16 match, at the Shivaji Park Gymkhana billiards hall.
Meanwhile, double Junior National champion Rayaan Razmi (-450) quietly grabbed all the attention, defeating senior pro Arun Agrawal (-475) 250-133 to advance to the quarter-finals. Rayaan, who holds both the Junior billiards and snooker titles, showed great character and patiently went about playing the cannons and the in-offs with consistent regularity and for all his good showing had three century breaks of 166, 122, and 119 and multiple smaller breaks of 60, 57, and 53 which helped him to cruise past Agrawal, who produced breaks of 160 and 77.
National Sub-junior billiards champion, Sumehr Mago (-235) also showed his prowess and fighting spirit to overcome seasoned cueist Nikhil Ghadge (-220) by romping to a fluent 250-133 victory and book a place in the last 8 round.
Top guns Dhruv Sitwala and Siddharth Parikh, both playing with high handicaps of -650 and -625 respectively, comfortably won their round of 16 matches. Former two-time Asian billiards champion Sitwala faced quite a challenge from young cue sport talent Shahyan Razmi (-180) before coming through by 250-180 points margin. India number 2, Sitwala compiled breaks of 114,109, 91, and 61. Parikh, who posted the highest break 272 in the competition, managed to get past seasoned campaigner Nalin Patel (-400) by a clear 250-4 points difference. Parikh’s best efforts were 192, 86, 85, and 83.
Results – Pre-quarter-finals: Rayaan Razmi (-450) beat Arun Agrawal (-475) 250-133; Akshay Gogri (-200) beat Amit Sapru (-220) 250-39; Siddharth Parikh (-625) beat Nalin Patel (-400) 250-4; Hasan Badami (-250) Mahaesh Jagdale (-300) 250-96; Dhruv Sitwala (-650) beat Shahyan Razmi (-180) 250-180; Sumehr Mago (-235) beat Nikhil Ghadge (-220) 250-133; Vishal Gehani (-270) beat Anurag Bagri (-270) 250-153.
