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Pillai has it easy, regains National Snooker title at Pune
India's number one female cueist Vidya Pillai has regained the national snooker title after scoring a convincing victory over defending champion Meenal Thakur here.
India's number one female cueist Vidya Pillai has regained the national snooker title after scoring a convincing victory over defending champion Meenal Thakur here.
Tamil Nadu's Pillai won the best of seven frames final 4-2 in a little over three and half hours encounter at PYC Hindu Gymkhana.
The four-time champion Pillai, who lost the crown last year, defeated Maharashtra's Thakur 48-38, 36-72, 32-55, 62-50, 72-11, 78-10 in the ladies summit clash.
Meenal's sister Anuja Chandra finished third, defeating Arantxa Sanchis 23-31, 59-32, 52-43 in the play-off match.
The first three frames of the summit clash lacked the thrill of a final as both players garnered points at slow pace. Pillai won the first 48-38 while Thakur won the subsequent two frames 72-36, 55-32. In the fourth frame, Pillai found her lost focus and scored a break of 25 and 19 to open up a lead of 55-0. After that she added seven more points to her score and Thakur conceded the frame at 62-15.
In the fifth and sixth frames, the Chennai lady displayed fine potting skills by occupying the cue table for most of the time. She opened up a 44-11 lead in the fifth thanks to a 27 point break and sealed the sixth frame with another 22 break.
In the men's snooker qualifying rounds, Shyam Jagtiani, R Girish and Pushpinder Singh won their respective first round league encounters. Pushpinder trounced Manish Jain 3-0, while Jagtiani outplayed J Varun Kumar 3-1. Raj Kumar managed to scrap past Vijay Goel 3-2.
