By Anand Philar, IANS,
Hyderabad : Igor Figueiredo of Brazil snuffed out the last of Indian challenge in the ONGC-IBSF World Snooker Championship when he zipped past a distracted Kamal Chawla 6-1 to enter the men’s semi-finals here Monday.
The 32-year old Figueiredo will next go up against China’s Yu Delu who dug himself out of a hole when trailing 1-4, then posted a brilliant 101 to beat Fung Kwok Wai of Hong Kong-China 6-5.
The other semi-final will be between title favourite Alfie Burden of England who took apart Anthony McGill of Scotland 6-1 and Phillip Williams of Wales who tamed the precocious Yuttapop Pakpoj of Thailand with a 6-3 decision.
Both the semi-finals will be played Tuesday over 13 frames and split into two sessions.
The focus this day was obviously on the Figueiredo vs Chawla match that, however, turned out to be disappointingly one-sided with the Brazilian, who moved to Germany about six months ago to pursue a career in snooker, out-potting his 30-year old opponent from Bhopal.
Nicknamed Tiger, Figueiredo, who sports a tattoo of the animal on his left upper arm, was in a league of his own through the match that also highlighted Chawla’s lack of focus and inconsistency.
The one slim chance that Chawla, who has never made it past the semi-finals in the National championship, had was in the fifth frame that the Brazilian took on a fluked black after making up a sizeable deficit with the help of a couple of snookers.
“I just could not focus today. I am not sure what went wrong with my game. I was missing even ball-to-ball potting and with the cueball kicking about on a couple of occasions, I had very little confidence. However, I am happy that I came so far in the tournament, but disappointed that I couldn’t progress further,” said Chawla who journeys to Bangalore for practice ahead of a tournament as Bhopal has no proper facilities.
While Burden and Williams had few problems in their respective matches, Delu was taken to the wire by Wai whose slow pace and craftiness seemed to upset the 22-year old Chinese. In fact, Wai enjoyed 4-1 and 5-3 leads, but each time, Delu came back and finally caught up at 5-5 with a run of 101.
In the 11th and deciding frame, Delu was off to a good start and went on to wrap up the match to set up an intriguing clash with Figueiredo on the morrow.
Late Sunday night, Geet Sethi bowed out of the Masters tournament, losing 3-4 to Costas Konnaris of Cyprus after leading 3-1 while in the men’s section, Lucky Vatnani also went out 3-5 to McGill.
The results:
Men (Quarter-finals) – Yu Delu (China) bt Fung Kwok Wai (Hong Kong-China) 6-5: 86-42, 39-54, 37-71, 15-66, 14-73, 81-0, 65-10, 27-59, 84-32, 138 (101)-0; 68-1. Alfie Burden (England) bt Anthony McGill (Scotland) 6-1: 73-53 (53), 92-35, 57-12, 63-13, 44-75 (70), 78-47, 79 (79)-42. Phillip Williams (Wales) bt Yuttapop Pakpoj (Thailand) 6-3: 81-8, 85-3, 76-13, 44-82 (81), 1-76 (76), 75-31, 74-38, 8-69 (61), 82 (56)-1. Igor Figueiredo (Brazil) bt Kamal Chawla (India) 6-1: 82-61, 85 (53)-6, 79 (59)-2, 72-6, 61-58, 28-52, 69-20.