The lone lady cueist in the fray, Sangeeta Hemchand of CCI has the honour of cueing off first as she will take on B. Keshwa of Goregaon Club in the opening round match of the Rs 12.25 lakh prize-money CCI Open Snooker Championship 2018, at the CCI’s Wilson Jones Billiards Room, on Thursday morning.
Two other cueists from CCI, Devesh Sharma and Rishabh Amin will also be seen in action on the first day. Sharma will meet Sachin Bhoir of Thane in the morning while later in the day Amin will clash with Krishnam Vohra of Otters Club.
Meanwhile, the leading players Aditya Mehta, Pankaj Advani, National champion Sumit Talwar of Chandigarh and runner-up Malkeet Singh of Railways, Yasin Merchant, Sonic Multani and the other top six ranked Indians have been directly seeded in the round of 32.
In the initial rounds, matches will be played on four tables and in four sessions with the first starting at 10.00am and the last at 4.30pm.
This tournament, which is the richest prize-money event in the country, has attracted an overwhelming response with almost 220 cueists vying for the top prize of Rs 2 lakh.
The runner-up will be richer by Rs 1.30 lakhs, the losing semi-finalists will receive Rs 75,000 each, and the losing quarter-finalists will get Rs 40,000 each. Players reaching the round of 16 and round of 32 would also receive cash prizes of Rs 25,000 and Rs 12,000 each respectively. To make the competition more exciting and challenging the organisers have instituted a special cash award of Rs 1.47 lakh for the maximum 147 break compiled during the tournament. Meanwhile, a cash award of Rs 25,000 is at stake for the highest break, the qualification mark is a break of 130 and over.