Rupesh Shah of Gujarat recovered from a shaky start and rolled in a 399-point break to defeat Mumbai’s talented youngster Sumer Mago in a pre-quarter-final match of the Rs 10 lakh prize-money CCI Classic Invitation Billiards (time format) Championship 2023 here on Monday.
Shah will face Dhruv Sitwala in the quarterfinals of the event, which is being held at the Cricket Club of India’s Sir Wilson Jones Billiards Hall. Three other top contenders have also advanced to the last-eight stage. Dhruv Sitwala of Mumbai defeated his sparring partner, and India No. 5 Siddharth Parikh won by a narrow margin of 559-455 points.
Later in the evening session, Singapore’s Peter Gilchrist and England’s Rob Hall easily won their respective last 16 matches. Former world champion Gilchrist defeated spirited Mumbai cueist V. Subramanian 829-496, while Hall defeated seasoned Mumbai campaigner Arun Agrawal, 689-513. Hall secured his victory with breaks of 102, 75, and 105.
Meanwhile, India’s most impressive player, IBSF World Champion Pankaj Advani, was in full flow and constructed two massive breaks of 395 and 293 to defeat Mumbai’s Vishal Madan 1101-463, while Gujarat’s Dhvaj Haria defeated another seasoned cueist from Mumbai, Ashok Shandilya, 633-561 to advance to the quarter-finals.
Earlier in the morning session, India’s No. 4 Shah demonstrated his dominance with a 155-point run to take a two-and-a-half-hour lead. Shah began the marathon break, which ended when he missed a difficult red pot. Shah, who had built a substantial lead, then had two more notable breaks of 83 and 102 to put the matter beyond the youngster, storming to a 984-399 victory.
On the other table, Sitwala defeated Siddharth Parikh in a close 559-455 victory to set up a match with Rupesh Shah. Last December, they met in the National Championship semifinals, with Sitwala advancing to the final.
In other matches, Ishpreet Singh of Mumbai defeated Durga Prasad of Hyderabad 821-582, while current World Championship runner-up Sourav Kothari cruised to a 1179-388 victory over Loukic Pathare, who compiled a mammoth break of 351.
Results:
Pre-quarterfinals: Rupesh Shah bt Sumer Mago 984[155, 399, 83, 102]-399[103].
Dhruv Sitwala Siddharth Parikh 558[112, 258]-455[83, 146].
Ishpreet Singh bt Durga Prasad 821[92, 86, 100]-582[84, 76, 76].
Sourav Kothari bt Loukic Pathare 1179[168, 170, 351, 108]-388[63, 63].
Peter Gilchrist bt V. Subramanian 829[74, 74, 85, 190]-496[97, 71].
Pankaj Advani bt Vishal Madan 1101[395, 293, 111, 75]-463[78, 109].
Dhvaj Haria Vs Ashok Shandilya 633[106, 81, 138, 118]-561[83, 84, 62].
Rob Hall bt Arun Agrawal 689[102, 75, 105]-513[82].
“Get more sports news, cricket news, and football updates, log on to sportsdigest.in. Follow us on Facebook or Twitter and Subscribe to our YouTube Channel.”
