Ahmedabad: Jacobs gets her revenge on the defending champion
Evening from London. At lunchtime I told you the Ahmedabad schedule had matches marked as finished but no scores. The scores are up now, and the first one I looked for is the best story of the day. Marina Jacobs of South Africa has beaten Vidya Pillai 7–2 in the last 16 of the women's heyball at the Commonwealth Cue Sports Championships. Pillai was the defending champion. She beat Jacobs on a shootout in last year's final in Mauritius, and this time Jacobs didn't let it get anywhere near that close. The score is on the organisers' schedule, and PTI's report of the opening day has it too.
That was a tough one for the home crowd, but it wasn't a bad day for India overall. PTI called it a strong start, and the results back that up. Here's how the rest of the day went:
- Men's heyball: Paras Gupta beat Samoa's Revelation Tagaloa 8–3 and Uzair Khan beat Hussein Abdallah 9–4. Gupta plays Craig Brown next, after Brown beat Azim Abu Bakar 9–2. Khan plays Tan Zhong Wei. Kamal Chawla, though, went out 7–4 to Mohd Reza Bin Hassan.
- Men's snooker last 16: Dhvaj Haria whitewashed the Isle of Man's Chris Dagnall 3–0, and Laxman Rawat edged Australia's David Wright 3–2. Craig MacGillivray needed the decider as well to get past Lim Kok Leong, 3–2.
- Women's snooker: Rebecca Kenna beat Chandihila Mbangiwa 3–0. Snenthra Babu beat Natasha Kent 3–1, Shruthi Lakshminarayanan beat Australia's Jessica Woods 3–1, and Simone Lloyd edged Nishami Surajlal 3–2.
- English billiards, round one: Siddharth Parikh beat Clive Marsh and Anupama Ramchandran beat Chimba Chimfwembe. Michael Pearson beat Jonathan Marwood, and Julie Watson beat Joy Willenberg.
India also picked up a win in the men's 10-ball: according to PTI, Lalrina Renthlei beat Kelly Yambi 9–3. Back in the women's heyball, Kelly Fisher, our feature image tonight, beat Mauritius' Vaishnavi Jugnarain 7–1. Mary Talbot beat Pooja Galundia 7–1, and Agnes Kimura beat India's Jiya Sehgal 4–2.
A bad day for the island and a lesson for the kid
I quoted Guernsey's James Kirk at lunchtime on what it means to play at this level. I'm sorry to report that it didn't go his way at all. Mark Foster beat him 9–0 in the 10-ball first round. Andre Boyce (9–2 over Raymond Reddy) and Paddy McLoughlin (9–1 over Irvin Muthalane) also won comfortably. In the women's 10-ball, Brittany Bryant beat June English 7–1 and Singapore's Anran Yu beat Sanvi Shah 7–1.
The blackball result I was most interested in was Lee Shepherd v Aarav Sancheti. Shepherd won it 7–2. Aditya Mehta spoke to DT Next this week about India's need for a "youth revolution", and he picked out Sancheti by name: "Aarav Sancheti is the name everyone is talking about. He has strong backing, great coaching, and he's been dominating across the junior and sub-junior circuits." Sancheti won the junior title at the first Heyball National Championship when he was 14, and then kept it the following year. Losing 7–2 to someone like Shepherd is hard, but it's the kind of night Mehta was talking about when he said young players can soak up "the sheer scale and atmosphere" of an event like this. Emma Cunningham beat Eliezer Tsin Mpane 5–1, Lynne Pinches beat Katerina Violari 5–2, and India's Gianna Rego beat Thapelo Mothate 5–2. In the men's blackball, Chetan Chhabra lost 7–4 to Rwanda's Frederic Ngaboyisonga.
Now, what's missing. As I write, the schedule still has no scores for Mehta v Jason Williams, Ross Vallance v Reagan Low Chew Tung, Alex Borg v Mohamed Thaha Irshath, Ketan Chawla v Michael Curphey or Darren Morgan v Bryan Lim Meng Liang. I haven't found those results anywhere else either, so I'm not going to tell you who won. Mehta told DT Next that "the best outcome would be for an Indian player to win a medal". The quarter-finals and semi-finals are on Friday.
Goyang: Lee Mi-rae ends the teenager's run
The 16-year-old's week is over. Lee Seung-hee lost 3–1 to Lee Mi-rae in the LPBA last 16 at the Crown Haitai Championship, according to MK Billiards. The report I read doesn't give the set scores, so I'm not going to make any up. She came through qualifying and beat four players on the way, including a former champion in Baek Min-ju, in only her fourth event as a pro. I think she'll be back.
The match of the session was Kim Ga-young v Kang Yu-jin, their first ever meeting, and it was a good one. MK Billiards has the details. At one set each, Kim won the third set 11–1 in four innings. Kang, who was runner-up at the last tour event, came back with three bank shots to take the fourth set 11–3. Kim went first in the deciding set and finished it 9–3 in six innings with a closing run of five. She's going for a third straight title at this event. The quarter-final is a repeat of a match from last year: Kim beat Hida Orie in the last 16 here a year ago on her way to the title, and MK puts their head-to-head at 5–0 in Kim's favour. Hida beat Kim Jin-a 3–0, with an average of 1.435 and a high run of seven.
- Park Jung-hyun, chasing back-to-back titles, beat Lee Shin-young 3–0. That's a cleaner win than the 3–1 when they met in the season opener.
- Han Ji-eun beat Yong Hyun-ji 3–1 and Park Da-som beat Lim Kyung-jin 3–1.
- Kang Ji-eun beat Kim Sang-a 3–2, and Jung Su-bin beat Lee Hwa-yeon 3–2.
The quarter-finals are on Friday: Kim Ga-young v Hida Orie, Park Jung-hyun v Jung Su-bin, Lee Mi-rae v Park Da-som, and Kang Ji-eun v Han Ji-eun. Kim v Hida starts at 07:00 BST.
Goseong: three teenagers and the favourites into the last 32
The singles have started at the Gyeongnam Goseong County Cup, and the men's three-cushion last 64 belonged to the youngsters. MK Billiards reports that three teenagers all won. Kim Do-hyun, ranked eighth in Korea, beat Jeong Sang-hoon 40–20 in 22 innings with an average of 1.818. In June he became the youngest national champion on record, winning the Incheon Mayor's Cup at 18 years and 22 days. Kim Hyun-woo, who is 16, made a high run of ten in beating Kim Hyun-ho 40–29. Kim Dae-hyun, also 16, needed 42 innings to beat Seong Nak-hoon 40–32.
The favourites got through as well. Cho Myung-woo, defending champion and world number one, beat Kang Ki-woong 40–31 in 27 innings. Heo Jung-han beat Kim Woong-dae 40–14 and Kim Haeng-jik beat Kim Sun-woo 40–26. Lee Bum-yeol beat Park Hyung-bin, Cho's doubles partner from earlier in the week, 40–37 in 41 innings. Domestic No.3 Choi Wan-young and national team player Song Yun-do both went out in the last 64.
Snooker round-up
- Riyadh: The Kingdom Snooker Championship last 16 has been played tonight. According to CueScore, four of the quarter-final places were filled in the early session. The later matches, including Saudi Cup winner Omar Al-Ajlani against Osama Abbas Ammar, were still being played when I checked. The quarter-finals are on Friday at 15:00 BST.
- Sydney: The last results from the Q Tour Asia-Pacific Australian Open's last 128 went up on WPBSA SnookerScores just after 13:00 BST.
- Changsha: The Snooker 900 breakthrough rounds go on. The round of 112 is on Friday, and the last-64 draw follows. I still haven't found a results list I trust, so I'm not naming names.
Around the rest of the map
- Bristol, Tennessee: I still have no results from the WPBA Borderline Brunswick/Pechauer Invitational, which runs until Sunday.
- USA: AzBilliards has been quiet since this morning's Revelina Um story. If anything comes in overnight, it'll be in the morning roundup.
Where to watch / What's next
- Ahmedabad (Fri): the quarter-finals and semi-finals, including Gupta v Brown and Khan v Tan in the men's heyball. The medal matches are on Saturday. The organisers stream on their YouTube channel.
- Goyang (Fri): the LPBA quarter-finals, starting with Kim Ga-young v Hida Orie at 07:00 BST, on BilliardsTV.
- Goseong (Fri): the men's three-cushion last 32.
- Riyadh (Fri): the quarter-finals at 15:00 BST, and the semis later the same evening.
- Reading (Fri–Sun): World Seniors Tour event three, with scores on WPBSA SnookerScores.
- Hangzhou (Fri): Wu Yize's CBL singles at 12:35 BST.
Here's tonight's question. Jacobs lost last year's final on a shootout and won this year's rematch 7–2. Was last year's result the fluke, or did Pillai just have an off day in front of her own crowd? Let me know below.
— Reggie Rutherford
Sources: Commonwealth Cue Sports Championships official schedule, PTI (via Rediff), DT Next, MK Billiards, Billiards & Sports (Korea), CueScore, WPBSA SnookerScores, AzBilliards, NetEase.
Feature image: “Kelly Fisher 6” by Puddin Tain, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 2.0.
