Sirisoma seeking to win his 22nd national title
Twenty one times national billiard champion K.H. Sirisoma of Sri Lanka Port Authority (SLPA) will be seeking to win his 22nd national title when he cues off in the final of the 61st National Billiards Championship against lesser known M.M. Jiffrey of YMBA Galle.
The 11-frame final is scheduled to be worked off at the Billiards and Snooker Association headquarters billiards table from 11.00 a.m. onwards and is due to be played over two sessions.
It will be interesting to see how Jiffrey will perform against Sirisoma as both were slotted in the same group in the round robin where Sirisoma ended up the runaway winner by three frames to nil in the five frame encounter.
K.H. Sirisoma
In the run up to the final Sirisoma who is the defending champion who was the hot favourite had little difficulty in cruising through to his 24th billiard final of which he has won a record 21 times lived up to his reputation as he remained unbeaten.He defeated his three opponents with the identical margin of three frames to nil to top his group. In the pre-quarter final encounter he overcame his club mate Rohitha de Silva from SLPA with ease and followed it up with a four frames to two win over Major W.M. Chandradasa of Army in the quarter final.
There was much speculation that Abdul Sattar of MSC who was his opponent in the semi final encounter would give him a good contest but it turned out to be a one sided affair as Sirisoma cruised through with an easy five frames to one victory.
In contrast Jiffrey who came into the tournament having won the All Island Lanka Championship which is a qualifier to the national tournament put in some giant killing performances after ending as the second best in his group at the completion of the round robin stage.
Jiffrey put in a great show in the pre-quarter final encounter when he defeated veteran S.M. Shaharwadie of MSC who till then had a successful tournament in a nail biting match by four frames to three.
Jiffrey then followed it up with two more nail biting finishes in the quarter and semi final encounters. In the quarter final he got the better of fancied and experience A.A. Kareem of MSC by the same winning margin of four frames to three.
The semi-final clash with another experience cueist M.M. Mubeen of Army turned out to be his best of all the previous performances. Jiffrey prevailed in the nine frame semi final with a five frames to four win to book a berth to the final.
However as mentioned earlier it’s left to be seen whether Jiffrey could match the technique of the experience and a confident Sirisoma who comes into the final as the hot favourite.
The encounter in the round robin encounter between the two cueists points out to a one sided affair and Sirisoma will also not be taking his opponent lightly and would be looking forward to finish off the game at the earliest.
The 61st National Billiard Championship is conducted by the Billiards and Snooker Association of Sri Lanka and sponsored by Singer Sri Lanka PLC. Kumar Samarasinghe, Director Sales, Singer Sri Lanka PLC will be chief guest and will award the winning trophy to the champion.
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