Alok Kumar, Anuja Thakur lift national Snooker titles

Bangalore, Feb 2 (UNI) Petroleum Sports Promotion Board cueist Alok Kumar won the national snooker title, defeating Rupesh Shah of Gujarat by six frames to five in a cliffhanger that extended to full distance in the Senior National Snooker Championship played at KSBA hall here today.

PSPB completed a clean sweep with Anuja Thakur winning the ladies title effortlessly, blanking Vidya Pillai of Tamil Nadu 3-0. It was a grand double for Anuja who had won the Billiards title beating her own sister Meenal Thakur last week.

In a marathan eight-hour final, held in two sessions, Alok, who had won the national title five times earlier, beat Rupesh 66-19, 59-05, 73-17, 52-60, 61-68, 10-66, 65-17, 60-35, 26-47, 43-83 and 80-65.

Anuja steamrolled Vidya in the final to win her maiden national title in the colour ball game with a score of 79-37, 75-15, 69-33.

Alok, earlier a quarterfinalist in the World Snooker Championship, stormed to a 3-0 lead in the morning, but had to face stiff resistance from Rupesh who bounced back to level frame scores at 3-3 and again rallied from a 3-5 deficit to draw level at 5-5.

However, Alok had the last laugh as he won the final frame with a timely break of 36. When the score in the decider was level at 63-all, Alok had a lucky break with Rupesh committing four fouls.

Alok finished off the game by clearing the pink to emerge as the worthy winner.

''The tournament was really tiring. I should have wrapped up the game after leading 3-0 but I was too tired due to the tough schedule after I beat Pankaj in the semis last night. The decider proved to be very tough as Rupesh was unrelenting. The fouls he committed in the fag end of the match gave me a breather,'' Alok said.

The 24-year-old Anuja said ''it feels great to win two national titles in a single tournament.'' MORE UNI