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Mike Russell solid and sure

Bill McArthur in Madras

Mike Russell at one-tenth of his awesome best, is good enough to beat the best in the business. And if he is able to raise his game a couple of notches higher, he is good enough to claim the mantle of World champion.

And that's precisely what the scenario was at the Ball Room of the Taj Connemara here on Sunday. He played to a little more than his wonted form in the final of the Florsheim World Professional Billiards Championships and that sufficed to get the better of former World champion and compatriot Peter Gilchrist, and match India's Geet Sethi's record of four World professional titles.

Russell said later in a post-match press conference that he was lucky that his rival and friend missed too many good chances. True. But the manner, the ferocity of his own play was so intense that it would not have mattered even if Gilchrist had taken those chances. Every time Russell got to the table, he was in a punishing mood.

The slow start apart - he said later that he was unable to sleep last night because of the noise raised by his fellow players who were revelling in an adjacent room - Russell never loosened his grip on the match after rolling in breaks of 74 and 294 on successive visits. It left Gilchrist, who had opened with an 85 and 99, in the cold. For, they were followed by runs of 192, 195, 124. And even though Gilchrist made a brief fightback with runs of 115, 88, 72 and 124, Russell virtually closed out the match with an unfinished 285 that brought to a halt the first session of the 2000-up final. And after extending that run to 332, Russell, showing superb control and total concentration, hammered in breaks of 341 and an unfinished 245 to get past the final post.

It may not have been a display that could be termed vintage Russell. But it was certainly solid and composed, a superb exhibition of the 'Floating White' technique, executed by the master himself.