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| Friday, 21 November 2003 |
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Sirisoma loses again Bernard Perera reporting from Hyderabad K.H. Sirisoma with two losses on Wednesday to Lee Lagan of England and Steve Mifsud of Australia had to drop his intentions of advancing to round two of the World Billiard championship now in progress at the Taj Krishna Hotel here in Hyderabad. Sirisoma who played in the morning against tough opponent Lee Lagan the man who defeated one of India's top contenders Alok Kumar lost his game in straight sets. The Lankan could not have nay good breaks during many visits to the table. His top score in the first set was only 17 points. Lagan made no mistakes with shots and went onto pile up points. He had two good collections at the early stages and went onto have an unfinished break of 49 points. His early breaks were 45 and 51. In the second set Lagan was in top form while Sirisoma was completely off colour. Lagan on his second visits piled up a massive 92 points which kept Sirisoma trailing by nearly 70 points. Sirisoma's best was 27 in this set. The set ended in favour of Lagan at 150-31. The Third set saw Sirisoma trying to catch up. But at this stage few mistakes from the Lankan helped Lagan to advance further. If Sirisoma did not make mistakes he could have given his opponent a better fight taking him to a five setter. In the evening Sirisoma had more problems facing Australia's young Steve Mifsud who had a good day winning the game 3 sets to nil. Mifsud never was in danger in the first game getting two half century break to take full control of the set. In the early stage he went on to the with solid break of 68 points. He completed this set in quick time scoring his 150 against Sirisoma's 34. The second set saw Sirisoma make a come back making few good breaks but those could not stop Mifsud. Mifsud realising that the Lankan looking forward to stretch him gave no room for his opponent to take charge of the set scoring a huge 88 points. This left Sirisoma trailing again. Sirisoma at this stage lost his concentration and had few miscalculated shots which paved the way for Mifsud to go ahead with tricks to grab this set to take a firm grip of the game 2-0. Sirisoma did well in the early stage of the third set taking 57 points from his second visit to the table. Mifsud was completely upset over Lankans come back trailing by nearly 100 points. Sirisoma 140 Mifsud 47. Mifsud using all his experience pulled away with classy break of 88 points to reduce the lead. This baffled Sirisoma and went onto faulter again which gave the opportunity to collect the set and the match 3-0. Sirisoma is scheduled to play his last group match today, while Naresh Samarawickrema play his game today. Yesterday Naresh lost to India's Ashok Sandilya 2 sets to 1. Sandilya at present ranked among the top eight in the tournament is a seasoned campaigner. Debutant Naresh though not experienced as his opponent managed to grab the second set comfortably. This proved that Naresh could pose a threat to anyone on the table provided he is given opportunity to compete along with top ranking cueists from our closest neighbours India in the future. Yesterday's losses by the Lankans put them out of the second round. Alok Kumar who got to a flying start on day one winning over Sirisoma had a bad day losing to Lee Lagan of England. Lagan tops Group H with three victories. Meanwhile the three Indians Geet Sethi the number one seed and P. Bashkar and Pankaj Advani are on top of their respective groups. Myanmar's U. Aung Samoo created a major upset when he crushed Siddharath Farikh in Group F. Prapat Chaithanaskun of Thailand too is in great form registering two victories in Group 'B'. Results - Lee Lagan (England) beat K.H. Sirisoma 3-0 (151-47, 150-37, 150-83). Steve Mifsud (Australia) beat K.H. Sirisoma 3-0 (150-34, 150-84, 150-142). Ashok Sandilya (India) beat Naresh Samarawickrema 3-1. |
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