Home challengers Ashok Shandilya and Vishal Madan, both of Chembur Gymkhana easily won their respective Group-E and Group-F matches in the Chembur Gymkhana Handicap Billiards Tournament 2018, and played at the Chembur Gymkhana billiards hall.
Vishal Madan
The former World billiards champion Shandilya (-450 handicap) was in cracking form and constructed two century breaks of 124 and 121 to outplay qualifier Carl Serrao (-190) of Dadar Club, winning by a 200-113 points margin. Besides the century runs Shandilya had multiple substantial efforts of 76, 61, 56, 40 and 38 to complete the win.
Ashok Shandilya
Maharashtra state no. 1 ranked billiards player Madan (-350) was steady and scored quite consistently as he compiled decent breaks of 78, 77, 65, 60, 40, 40 and 34 to record an authoritative 200-101 win against qualifier Shailesh Rao (-30) of Matunga Gymkhana. This was Madan’s maiden win as he had lost to Pankaj Khatri in the first league match.
Seasoned pro Nalin Patel (-450) registered his second win on the trot by defeating Khatri (-130) by a massive 200-34 points margin in another Group-F encounter. Patel had earlier defeated Shailesh Rao (-30) in the first match of the league.
Meanwhile, 16-year-old Rayaan Razmi scored back-to-back victories in Group-D. Rayaan (-190) first got the better of Devendra Joshi (-450) by a 200-47 points difference and then prevailed over another heavyweight Hitesh Kotwani (-350) 200-75 . Rayaan having all his three group matches has topped the group and moved to the pre-quarter-finals. He had earlier beaten Sagar Madan.
Results – Round-robin league –
Group-A: Dhvaj Haria (-500) beat Bakirao Pacharne (-90) 200-150.
Group-B: Nikhil Lalwani (-40) beat Loukic Pathare (-275) 200-111.
Group-C: Dhruv Sitwala (-500) beat Sunil Jain (-150) 200-8.
Group-D: Rayaan Razmi (-190) beat Devendra Joshi (-450) 200-47
Rayaan Razmi (-190) beat Hitesh kotwani (-350) 200-75.
Group-E: Ashok Shandilya (-450) beat Carl Serrao (-190) 200-113.
Group-F: Nalin Patel (-450) beat Pankaj Khatri (-130) 200-34; Vishal Madan (-350) beat Shailesh Rao (-30) 200-101.
Group-G: Shrikrishna S (-400) beat Chandresh Shah (-150) 200-76.
Group-H: Aditya Agrawal (-375) beat Kreishh Gurbaxani (-225) 200-16; Arun Agrawal (-375) beat Sahil Kakkad (-70) 200-99.