Anuja Thakur triumphs

Anuja Thakur of Petroleum Sports Control Board dethroned reigning champion Vidya Pillai of Tamil Nadu to lift the women's snooker title in the LIC-BSNL National Billiards and snooker Championship in Chennai.

In the best-of-five frame final late Friday evening, Anuja made up for her billiards title loss by pocketing the snooker title with an emphatic 3-1 win over Vidya.

Overcoming the first frame loss, Anuja played some fine shots on her way to 39-62, 68-40, 62-30, 62-22 win over the defending champion.

Vidya showed flashes of brilliance by winning the first frame, but she slipped into errors and missed some easy shots. Anuja, on the other hand, excelled in top table play and pocketed some long canons with a touch of finesse.

Results: Women snooker final: Anuja Thakur (PSCP) bt Vidya Pillai (TN) 39-62, 68-40, 62-30, 62-22.

Junior snooker: (knock out) Lucky Vatnani (AP) bt Pranit (TN) 3-0 (64-23, 71-9, 73-29); Fiazal Khan (Del) bt Kisar Raoof (AP) 3-0 (60-46, 56-21, 49-47) Ajay Bushan (Kar) bt Pushpinder Singh (Del) 3-1 (54-67, 65-8, 57-41, 67-11); Aditya Mehta (Mah) bt Shahbaz Adil Khan (WB) 3-0 (93-24, 83-12, 66-39); Ayush Kumar (Pun) bt Vinay Kothari (TN) 3-1 (70-30, 8-65, 64-52, 53-44); Chetan Chabria (Har) bt Ritesh Shabani (MP) 3-2 (45-58, 31-6, 64-49, 44-27, 47-34).