City’s Aarav, 12, to participate in U-17 World c’ship snooker

Pune: Five years ago, national-level snooker player Sachin Sancheti was trying to engineer a platform around a snooker table. He wanted his son Aarav, then seven, to reach a comfortable height to play the sport. Now, the father-son duo is preparing for the latter to participate in a world meet.Aarav will be among eight players representing India in the International Billiards and Snooker Federation World Under-17 snooker championship in Riyadh from July 7.At 12, Aarav will be the youngest Indian in the fray. The selection was done on the basis of national ranking. Mayur Garg, Jabez Navin Kumar, Mayank Karthik, S Lakshmi Narayan, A Abdul Saif, Sham Allwin and Herrick Dereen are the other Indian cueists who will be in action. “I had introduced Aarav to the sport, and he looked interested even at a young age. However, the problem was his height, as he was young and could barely reach the table. Hitting shots was not possible,” Sachin told TOI.“He first tried by wearing shoes with high heels, but that posed a danger of him getting injured. We then tried by keeping milk crates around the table but that was unstable too. I finally got a wooden platform made around the table, which helped him play without problems,” Sachin said.The young boy started training under Pune-based coach Vijay Nichani before shifting to Arjuna Awardee and multiple national champion Yasin Merchant in Mumbai. “When my father first showed me the game, I thought it was very easy. @But as I tried playing, I realised it isn’t as simple as it looks. I took it as a challenge and then started liking it,” Aarav said.The Pune boy also trains at the PYC Hindu Gymkhana. He is a standard 7 student of Global India International School, Hadapsar.
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