BSAM State Selection tourney from Sept 8

by Suman Gupta

Mumbai, September: The Maharashtra State Junior Snooker and Senior Snooker & Billiards Selection (leg 1) Championship – 2019, will be conducted by the Billiards & Snooker Association of Maharashtra (BSAM) at the P.J. Hindu Gymkhana and the Bombay Gymkhana from September 8, 2019.

Competition will commence with the Junior Snooker event and all the leading junior players (under 21 years as of 31st December, 2019) have confirmed their participation in the tournament, which will be played at the Hindu Gymkhana billiards hall from Sunday, September 8. Sparsh Pherwani (Khar Gymkhana), the Maharashtra No. 1 senior snooker player; Rayaan Razmi and Shahyan Razmi (both Radio Club), Sumehr Mago and Siddharth Mody (both Khar Gymkhana), Ameya Sankhala (Park Club) and Krishnan Vora (Otters Club) are some of the top junior cueists who would be fighting for the top honours.

The Senior Men Snooker is scheduled to cue off at the Bombay Gymkhana billiards hall from Monday, September 16, 2019 and the Senior Men Billiards tournament will be conducted at the Hindu Gymkhana from Monday, September 30, 2019.

The Junior Snooker will be played on the best-of-3 frame basis on a knockout draw till the semi-finals. The semi-finals will be a round-robin basis of best-of-5 frame format.

In the Senior Men’s Billiards, the initial phase will be the qualifying round to be played over best-of-5 100-up format. Eight players will qualify to join eight players who have been given direct qualification on the basis of the previous year’s State selection ranking. The 16 players will be drawn in four groups of four players each and will play on a round-robin league basis over a best-of-5 100-up format. Top two players from each group on basis their round-robin performance will qualify for the knockout stage. The knockout round matches will be a best-of-5 150 up format to the semi-final round. The final be played on a best-of-7 150 up basis.

In the Senior Men Snooker event, there will be a qualifying round to select 16 players who will join 16 players seeded directly in the main draw on the basis of the previous years’ State selection ranking.

The format for qualifying round will be best-of-5 frames direct knockout draw. Later, the 32 players (16 qualifiers and 16 ranked seeds) will be divided into 8 groups of 4 players each and they will play on a round-robin league. Matches will be of best-of-5 frames.

The top two players from each group will advance to the 16-player knockout draw and the matches would be played on the best-of7 frame up to the final.

In the Senior Men Snooker & Billiards, there will be a play-off match to decide the third and fourth place and also play-off matches for classification from fifth to eighth positions.