Sitwala too good for Balachandra
Defending champion Dhruv Sitwala of India proved to be too good for his compatriot Bhaskar Balachandra as he coasted to a convincing six frames to two win in the final of the 15th Asian Billiards Championship played at Hotel Ramada in Colombo to retain the Asian title for yet another year. Balachandra who performed two giant killing efforts when he defeated 15 time world champion Pankaj Advani of India in the quarter-final and three time world champion Peter Gilchrist of Singapore in the semi-final but he was no match for Sitwala.
Sitwala came into the championship which began on March 2 as the top seed and lived up to his reputation. He had a clean run right throughout the championship and no one was able to come close to him. In the 11 frame final Sitwala went into the lead by winning the first frames with ease in which he had two over 50 breaks of 73 and 95. Balachandra reduced the deficit by taking the third frame but Sitwala came back to take the fourth frame before Balachandra bounced back with a win in the fifth frame
It was turning out to be a closely contested affair after the completion of the first five frames with Sitwala holding on to a slender lead by three frames to two but it turned to be a one sided game. But unfortunately that was all Balachandra could achieve as Sitwala repeated his semi final performance and his opponent Balachandra was left to just watch Sitwala potting with ease as he went on to take the sixth, seventh and eighth frames to seal the game and retain Asian billiard title.
Meanwhile the U21 junior snooker final between the third and fourth seeded Wang Yuchen of China and Ratchayothin Yotharuck of Thailand turned out to be a thriller which was a fitting finish to the seven day championship. The match went the full 11 frames in a ding dong battle which ultimately saw the two young cueists being left with the challenging task of winning the deciding 11th frame where the Chinese cueist prevailed in a tense battle.
Thus came to an end a successfully conducted 15th Asian Billiards and U21 Junior Snooker Championships by the Sri Lanka Billiards and Snooker Association which had the blessings of the Asian Confederation of Billiards Sports that was contested by cueists from 12 countries in the Asian region comprising of 23 in the billiards and 32 in the snooker championships
Results Finals:
Billiard: Dhruv Sitwala (India) beat Bhaskar Balachandra (India) 6-2 (100/0, 100/5, 0/101, 101/14, 76/101, 101/12, 105/0, 102/0)
U21 Junior Snooker: Wang Yuchen (China) beat Ratchayothin Yotharuck (Thailand) 6-5 (24/64, 74/0, 0/82, 65/36, 71/34, 0/88, 72/39, 60/37, 0/87, 6/59, 73/43)