by Suman Gupta
128 cueists to compete for 32 places in main draw of Rs 13 lakh prize-money all-India snooker tournament
Mumbai: A competitive field of 128 snooker players from across the country will be hoping to secure a place among the 32 qualifiers who would join the 32 established cueists on the Indian snooker circuit, who have been given direct entry to the main draw of the National Sports Club of India (NSCI) organised Rs 13 lakh prize-money ‘Baulkline’ NSCI All India Snooker Open 2023, from January 2 to 14, 2023.
The NSCI tournament organizing committee has chalked out the 128-player draw of the initial phase which is set to commence on the five new tables at the NSCI billiards hall from Monday. The draws are uploaded on the tournament website –http://www.baulkline.inand the participating player can check their respective match schedules.
The initial rounds will be played on a best-of-5-frame format, while round to qualify will be a best-of-7-frame contest.
Former Asian Games gold medalist Rafat Habib, Siddharth Parikh, Nitesh Madan, all from Railways, Devendra Joshi of PSPB, Rrahul Sachdev and Mahesh Jagdale, both of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu’s Vijay Nichani, former Junior National snooker champions Ashutosh Padhy of Odisha, Anuj Upal of Delhi are some of the strong contenders who will stake a claim to advance to the main draw, which is scheduled to commence from January 8.
With 13 lakh as total prize-money, the second edition is set to give away Rs.3 Lakhs to the winner followed by 1.5 Lakhs to the runner-up and ultimately going down the ladder to give Rs.5,000 to the 32 qualifiers to be the highest paying tournament to start 2023. An award of Rs 1500 would be presented for every century (100 plus) break.
