Rupesh Shah wins World Billiards title

Leeds: Rupesh Shah became only the fifth Indian cueist to lift the world title twice after he beat Australia’s Matthew Bolton 6-2 in the final of the World Billiards (point frame). Starting by winning the lag, he won the first game comfortably but in the next game, Bolton levelled the match 1-1 at the Northern Snooker Centre here. Fifth game was the turning point in this match where Bolton missed cannon on 148 and Rupesh settled the score 3-2 in his favour. In the next game, Rupesh made unfinished break to advance the lead and was cruising along comfortably till the closing moments of the eighth game in which he missed the match winning red-pot. [caption id=“attachment_505481” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Rupesh Shah in this file photo. AFP[/caption] Bolton made a break of 83 points and went out of position on a score of 105. Rupesh played safe even as Bolton attempted a long red pot. The Australian further attempted short jenny but ended up giving a chance of pot to Rupesh which the Indian converted into his match winning shot. Rupesh had earlier defeated big guns like Mike Russell (in quarterfinal), Peter Gilchrist (in semifinal). Meanwhile, former world champion Pankaj Advani knocked out his compatriot Dhruv Sitwala in the semifinal to enter the final of World Billiards (time format) against defending champion Mike Russell. Pankaj made a good start in the first session and with the help of three breaks of 167, 205 and 257, he built a lead of 600 points by the session break. Dhruv couldn’t do anything except an attempted century break that ended on 86 when he lost position. In the second session, Pankaj kept enhancing his lead using small breaks of 52, 71, 69 and 71. Dhruv had nothing much to do despite having breaks of 57, 52, 52, 56, 96, 56, 57 and 91. Finally Advani won the match by 514 points. PTI