Advani secures IBSF World Snooker Championship title
MUMBAI: Ronaldo Fernandes notched a fine hat-trick to fire Lakers FC to a fluent 4-1 win against Friends United in a Second Division match of the MDFA League 2017-2018 and played at the St. Xavier’s ground, Parel. After Ronaldo scored the opening three goals Karnik Tanay netted the fourth to seal the win, while Friends United pulled one back through Abdul Manan Shaikh. Earlier in First Division encounter, Franco Sports Club were forced the share honours with Sahayadri Krida Mandal in a 1-1 draw. Franco Sports went ahead through Tanmay Tolgaonkar’s strike in the 41st minute while Rohan Sharma got the equalizer through Rohan Sharma to snatch a draw. Results (Div-I): Franco Sports Club 1 (Tanmay Tolgaonkar) drew with Sahayadri Krida Mandal 1 (Rohan Sharma). Young Guns, Bandra 5 (Dhruv Hegde 2, Sailesh Lakhani, Aditya Rawal, Owais Khatib) beat Juhu Beach United 0. Div-II: Lakers FC 4 (Ronaldo Fernandes 3, Karnik Tanay) beat Friends United 1 (Abdul Manan Shaikh). MUMBAI: Saurabh Gupta’s twin strikes helped St. Stanislaus High School rally to down Children’s Academy High School 2-1 in a Boys’ Pool A league match of theMHAL orgainsed Inter-Schools (Boys’ and Girls’ Under-16) Hockey Tournament played at the MHAL-Mahindra Stadium, Churchgate. Children’s Academy took the lead through Rhythm Mamnia’s 10th minute goal. But Stanislaus fought back and scored two goals through Saurabh in the 20th and 45th minute. In another match, St. Lawrence High School got the better of CBH High School by a narrow 1-0 margin. Faizan Shaikh scored the lone goal in the 26th minute. Stanislaus, Don Bosco, Guru Nanak and Maharashtra Military School have qualified for the semi-finals in the boys’ category. In the girl’s section, St. Elias, St. Theresa’s, Durello Convent and St. Joseph’s have made the semi-finals. Ace Indian cueist Pankaj Advani dished out another superb performance to outclass Iran's Amir Sarkhosh in the finals and claim yet another title at the IBSF World Snooker Championship on Monday.
His deadly attacking game coupled with phenomenally tight safety play helped Advani to secure his 18th World Championship title with a 8-2 win over Amir at the Al-Arabi Sports Club.
The best-of-15 frame final witnessed Amir pocketing the first frame rather comfortably. The Iranian looked strong and focused in the second frame too, progressing well and nearing a 2-0 scoreline, but a missed green pot gave a lifeline to Pankaj as he seized the opportunity with both hands and drew parity.
Pankaj never looked back from there as he raced to a 52 lead. He, however, survived a scare in a close battle in the 4th frame. A massive break of 134 by Amir in the 6th did not faze the Indian as he immediately widened the lead to 5-2 before going into the 1st session break. A long red pot against the nap with a perfect position for blue saw him draw first blood after the interval with a break of 45. Couple of safety exchanges later, Pankaj once again trapped Amir with a perfect snooker to extract an opening. Another long red pot spectacularly executed saw him make another useful break of 17 points to increase the margin leaving the cue ball in an unplayable position.
A hapless Amir couldn't do much as his wild shot in frustration saw Pankaj come back to table once again to seal the frame with another break of 41 points and take a commanding lead of 6-2.
Though Amir got the first opening in the 9th, a missed red pot saw Pankaj unfold his vast repertoire of strokes to compile a magnificent framewinning break of 77 points with only 4 reds remaining on the table.
Placing himself just one frame away from winning another world title Pankaj once again established his stronghold in the 10th frame by scoring the first 22 points.
However, an unexpected miss saw Amir open his account in the frame and score 30 points to take a slender lead of 8 points.
However, a calm and composed Pankaj patiently waited for his opportunity and soon brought the score to 47-47, before clearing the remaining colours, frame and the match.