I rate Russell as the best, says Geet

Ahmedabad: Billiards maestro Geet Sethi rates Mike Russell as the best among the players he has played with. The rivalry between Sethi and Russell was a riveting feature of billiards in the 1990s.

I rate Russell as the best

as far as having the calibre on the table is concerned, said Geet, one of the greatest sporting talents India has ever produced, on the sidelines of the 6Red Snooker tournament in Ahmedabad on Wednesday.

“Russell and myself used to have umpteen breaks of 700-800 during our peak days. In the present era, I consider Pankaj Advani, who has been dominating the sport for long, an absolute champion material. He is a class apart and has won a high number of titles. He has the metal toughness to be the No. 1 in the country.”

On his comeback to the green baize, Geet said he realised last year that he needed to keep playing. "I felt that my body had lost some of the agility and I wanted to get some exercise and bring some rhythm back into the body. That's how it started and I got hooked to the game again."

“Recently, I had a break of over 500 during a practice session in Dubai and am very pleased that I am getting back into shape,” said the maestro who considers his break of 1276 during the World Billiards Championship as the high point of his illustrious career.

Geet is happy that the cue game has picked up in Gujarat in the last few years. “It is very pleasing to see that in the last seven-eight years, there has been a rise in snooker centres all over the state like in Rajkot, Vadodara and Surat,” said Sethi.

Geet feels Ahmedabad’s Dhvaj Haria is the future of Gujarat in the sport.

“Dhvaj has been the runner-up at the national billiards championship in the last two years. He works hard and is talented. Recently Dhvaj has beaten Pankaj in two back-to back tournaments and this augurs well for him,’’ said Geet.


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