Shrikrishna completes double

The Chennai boy won the National Sub-Junior Snooker Championship at Bengaluru beating Digvijay Kadian of Haryana for the second consecutive time in the final. Shrikrishna had earlier won the sub-junior billiards final last week. Digvijay, who lost 0-3, was leading at 4111 in the first frame and missed a simple yellow on table clearance. Shrikrishna cleared the colours and walked away with the frame. The second frame was running neck to neck. Shrikrishna potted a difficult black to the centre pot to take the score to 2-0. 

In the third frame after a few safety exchanges, Shrikrishna got a long red pot and made a 40 break going out of position. Digvijay was completely off flow and could not come into the game to give a fight leading to a one-sided finish. Shrikrishna defeated Ansh Chopra of J&K 2-0 with a break of 49 in the second frame to enter the final. But before that he went through some anxious moments in the quarter-finals against Rayaan Razmi of Maharashtra. Rayaan took a 51-44 lead in the first frame when Shrikrishna’s erratic shot gave position to the Maharashtra boy, who went on to make a 20-point break and win the3 first frame. 

In the second frame, Rayaan made a well compiled break of 40 to put the scoreboard at 40-19 with four reds on the table. Then Rayaan made a dubious move and rushed for an easy blue to hit the jaw. Shrikrishna made a table clearance of 43 to put the frame score at 1-1. In the third frame, both the players were missing easy shots. With a few small breaks, Shrikrishna put the score of the frame at 48-6 to win the quarterfinals 2-1. 

Digvijay Kadian overcame Karmesh Patel of Gujarat in the semi-finals.

In the junior boys’ billiards event, S Shrikrishna beat T Vibhas 577-266 with breaks of 53 and 67. 

Anupama Ramachandran, the defending champion in the National Sub-Junior Snooker Championship, will begin her campaign in this year’s edition at the KSBA Hall in Bengaluru on Tuesday. The 16-year-old Chennai girl will try to add a couple of titles more to the one she already has in her bag. “She has worked hard and she has put in the hours at the table,” says her coach Suryanarayanan. “She has moved pretty fast in the last one year starting from the State ranking in November where she walked away with all four golds in the Under-18 and Under-21 in both billiards and snooker,” added the coach. 

She has climbed higher this year in the State ranking in October by sweeping away all the six State titles including the ladies. “This is a very unique feat in India. It is unique because it is a sub-junior winning all the titles including the Ladies which effectively means performing at a very high level in the Tamil Nadu state,” said Suryanarayanan.