Dharminder Lilly top seeded in National Carombole

New Delhi, July 24 (UNI) Punjab's Dharminder Lilly has been top-seeded in the National One-cushion Carombole championship starting here from Thursday.

Local challenger Manan Chandra is the second seed and heads the bottom half of the draw. Siddharth Anand and Devender Joshi are third and fourth seeds respectively.

The semi-finals and final will be played on the last day of the championship on July 31.

As many as 32 cueists will open the campaign to grab the lone spot in the Indian team for the second Asian Indoor Games to be held in Macau, China, from October 27 to November 3.

The national championship carries a total prize money of Rs.

25,000 with the winner getting richer by Rs. 15,000.

According to Organising Secretary Amarjeet Singh, the matches will be played on the basis of 60 visits or 150 points, whichever is earlier.

He said a special table, M1 Viraka, has been imported by the DBSA so that the cueists will get the feel of the same green baize that would be used during the Macau Games.

Following Lilly and Asian Games snooker doubles gold medalist, Rafath Habib's entry, a few more prominent cueists have also sent their entries.

With Manan Chandra and Alok Kumar also in the fray, the National championship has received a further boost.

International referee Ajay Rastogi will be the chief referee of the championship.

UNI