Englishman Rob Hall displayed impeccable touch and constructed a gigantic 600 point break during his resounding 1264-551 victory against Gujarat’s Dhvaj Haria in the first semi-final of the Cricket Club of India organized Rs 10 lakh prize-money CCI Classic Invitation Billiards (time format) Championship 2023 at the CCI Sir Wilson Jones billiards hall on Wednesday afternoon.
Later, in the second semi-final, India’s most accomplished cue sports player Pankaj Advani of Bengaluru played with solid confidence and a high degree of consistency and steamrolled past Gujarat’s Rupesh Shah charging to a — — victory. The IBSF World Champion Advani fired in a double century and three century breaks to seize a massive 794-220 point advantage at the short break.
The 38-year-old Hall exhibited remarkable touch and excellent control as he played some fine in-offs and precision cannons and pots and started with a bang making a 105 break and a few visits he uncorked a stupendous effort of 600 points to take a firm grip of the match and went into the break with a mammoth 730-191 points lead at the end of first one-and-half hour session. Haria had one run of 144 in the opening period.
Hall is now the only player to post two breaks over 500 points in the tournament. He had earlier constructed a high 525 break in the group stage of the competition.
The 29-year-old Gujarat cueist had his share of chances but was a bit jaded and could not expand on the good starts to produce the big breaks which would have certainly taken the fight to the English player who later played cleverly to maintain the lead and sail through to the final.
“I played good. I knew I had to play well because Dhvaj (Haria) has been playing very well in this event. We have also played each other in the past, I have won some, lost some against him, so I was aware that I had to be on top of my game. I started with a 100 break and a couple of visits later I made a 600 which put a lot of distance between us and I managed to keep the lead through the second session and went on to clinch the win,” a relaxed Hall mentioned after the match.
Hall confidently stated that it doesn’t matter who he plays in tomorrow’s final. “Pankaj (Advani) has got to be the favourite, but Rupesh (Shah) has been playing very, very well so there might be a potential upset on the cards. I don’t really care who I will be playing in the final as long as I know I’m playing really well, it could be anybody, but right now I’m going to get some rest and prepare for the final.”
Results – Semi-finals: Rob Hall beat Dhvaj Haria 1264[105, 600, 81, 153, 55, 161UF]-551[144, 61, 161, 93].