Dishing out a slick performance Rob Hall of England stamped his class constructing a stupendous break of 525 which helped him to record a come-from-behind 838-353 win against National junior billiards champion Rayaan Razmi from Mumbai in a Group-C league match of the Rs10 lakh prize-money CCI Classic Invitation Billiards (time format) Championship 2023, organized by the Cricket Club of India, at the Sir Wilson Jones billiards hall on Sunday afternoon.
The Maharashtra state billiards number one Rayaan started on a promising note and with breaks of 66, 60 and 59 raced to a 215-60 points lead against the Englishman. But, the Englishman Hall suddenly struck top form and hardly put a foot wrong as he with clinical and precision play started to accumulate points to build on the massive break, which swung the match in his favour. Hall having won all three matches has qualified the pre-quarter-finals.
In another match of the same group played between Mumbai cueists, V. Subramaniam compiled breaks of 92, 241 and 69 and went on to defeat Kanishk Jhanjharia 656-272 for his second win and joins Hall in the last 16.
Meanwhile, Ishpreet Singh of Mumbai and Dhvaj Haria of Gujarat registered their third successive wins in their groups to sail through the round of 16. In a Group-B encounter, Ishpreet Singh played confidently to overcome Sunil Jain 568-333. Ishpreet’s best efforts were 102, 78 and 75.
In contrast, the tall gangling Haria continued with his impressive run of form and outclassed Ketan Chawla 747-234 to secure his third win in Group-G and book his berth in the pre-quarter-finals. Haria played quite consistently and rolled in break of 239, 131, 137 and 78 to complete a deserving victory.
Results – Group-A: Loukic Pathare bt Shahyan Razmi 849[77, 97, 78]-303.
Group-B: K. Venkatesh bt Rishabh Kumar 658[104]-362.
Peter Gilchrist bt K. Venkatesham 606[167,102,86,71]-588[107,78].
Group-C: Rob Hall bt Rayaan Razmi 838[525, 154]-353[66, 60, 59].
V. Subramaniam bt Kanishk Jhanjharia 656[92, 241, 69]-272.
Rayaan Razmi bt Kanishk Jhanjharia 903[204,105, 83,78]-305.
Group-D: Dhruv Sitwala VS Aditya Agrawal 905[103, 185, 263, 78, 101uf]-245.
Ishpreet Singh Vs Sunil Jain 568[102, 78, 75]-333.
Ishpreet Singh bt Dhruv Sitwala 549[123,116,82,74]-466[172,114,94,80].
Group-E: Rupesh Shah bt Arun Agrawal 761[249,129,125]- 311.
Devendra Joshi bt Shekhar Surve 625[140]-250.
Group-G: Dhvaj Haria bt Ketan Chawla 747[239, 131, 137, 78]-234.
Sumer Mago bt Mahesh Jagdale 627[87]-471.
Ketan Chawla bt Mahesh Jagdale 609[145,99]-444[83].
Group-H: Rohan Jambusaria bt Vishal Madan 536[79,86]-404[116,80].