Mumbai cueist, Siddharth Parikh clinched a bronze medal in the IBSF World Billiards (timed format) championship, which recently concluded in Adelaide, Australia. Meanwhile, in the final, India’s Pankaj Advani defeated Singapore’s Peter Gilchrist to win his 14th World title.
Parikh with some steady performances enjoyed a good run till the semi-finals before losing to Peter Gilchrist (Singapore) 1122-1438. The Mumbai player had started with a flourish and compiled a neat break of 318 to grab the early initiative. But his more senior opponent Gilchrist replied back with a well-constructed effort of 426 to turn things in his favour before producing two other good runs of 106 and 177 as he went on to close out the match. Parikh’s other notable break in the penultimate round were 144, 97, 94 and 91.
The Mumbai cueist Parikh, was not disheartened by his semi-final loss and going the distance. “I am very satisfied with my overall performance. I played very well throughout and maybe if I could have played a little bit more tighter in the semis the outcome would have been different. The margin of defeat was just 300 points, which is one good break,” admitted Parikh on his return to the city.
Siddharth Parikh
“I will now get back to my game and prepare for the future. I now have to focus and concentrate for the National championship which will be held early next year,” he further said.
In the earlier rounds, Parikh defeated Devendra Joshi and Alok Kumar in the round of 16 and quarter-finals respectively. Parikh also won all his three matches to finish at the top in the four-player Pool-G round-robin league.