Vidya ousts Varshaa to retain Nat’l crown

Bengaluru: In the middle of a brilliant run, Vidya Pillai came up with the goods when it mattered to edge out Varshaa Sanjeev and retain her 6-red snooker National Championship title at the Sage University campus in Indore on Sunday.
In a battle between two Karnataka cueists, which could have gone either way, Vidya had to play out of her skin to dash the youngster’s hopes.The 45-year-old took a quick 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven-frame final. However, Varshaa reeled off the next three close frames that was decided on the black.
Vidya, who recently made the finals of both 6-red and the 15-red IBSF World Championships, dug deep into her resources to claim the next two frames to annex her third 6-red snooker title.
The men’s final too was a humdinger. Mumbai’s Ishpreet Singh Chadha, the reigning 15-red snooker champion, won his maiden 6-red National title, beating former world champion Pankaj Advani 7-6.
Trailing 3-6 in the best-of-13-frame final, Ishpreet, the Asian runner-up in the traditional format, won four frames on the trot, — the 12th on Advani’s error — three of them with runs of 69, 49 and 68, to emerge triumphant.
Results: Men: Final: Ishpreet Singh Chadha (Mah) bt Pankaj Advani (PSPB) 7-6 (35-25, 18-32, 43-20, 72 (72) -0, 5-36, 4-59, 0-44, 0-37, 0-50, 69 (69) -0, 49-0, 33-30, 68 (68) -7).Semis: Ishpreet bt Dhvaj Haria (PSPB) 6-1; Advani bt Kamal Chawla (RSPB) 6-1.Quarters: Chawla bt S Shrikrishna (PSPB) 6-1; Haria bt Sparsh Pherwani (Mah) 6-1; Ishpreet bt Sourav Kothari 6-2; Advani bt Luv Kukreja (Del) 6-0.Women: Final: Vidya Pillai (Kar) bt Varshaa Sanjeev (Kar) 4-3 (36-0, 25-15, 28-34, 25-37, 20-32, 43-20, 42-11).Semis: Vidya bt Amee Kamani (MP) 4-1; Varshaa bt Anupama Ramachandran (TN) 4-2.Quarters: Varshaa bt Chitra M (Kar) 4-0; Vidya bt Ishika Shah (MP) 4-1; Amee bt Arantxa Sanchis (Mah) 4-3; Anupama bt R Umadevi (Kar) 4-1.