Women cueists to enter Asian Games

Women cueists would get a maiden opportunity to prove their prowess in any mutli-discipline event when they compete for the two gold medals on offer at the 2006 Doha Asian Games.

The Asian Games Cue Sports Organising Committee has decided to hold medal competition for women in 8-ball pool singles and 9-ball pool singles for the first time in the history of the Games.

Also Read Anuja bags World Billiards crown Advani wins World billiards double India to host 2010 Commonwealth Games

In fact, Asian Games is the only multi-discipline event in which cue sports is a medal discpline so far while it would be introduced as a medal discpline in the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi.

Though the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India has been one of the Association which advocated introduction of medal events for women in cue sport, it would have a tough task to field a strong contingent since there are no pool competitions for the fairer sex in the country.

"It is true that we dont have pool competitions for women. But this time we will be holding the first-ever 8-ball and 9-ball pool nationals for women as well in July along with the second 3 cushion carrom nationals," BSFI vice-president R K Tandon said.

"Considering that the Indian women have been competing on the world stage in other variants of cue sports, I don't think they will take much time in adapting to this variant," he added.

Tandon said the decision to hold competition for women in pool instead of snooker and billiards was taken since the variant was easy to play and more popular in majority of Asian countries.

In all, there would be 10 gold medals on offer in cue sports in the Doha Asian Games out of which eight would be for men and two for women.

The eight events for men are Snooker Single, Snooker Double, Snooker Team, English Billiards single, English Billiards Double, 9-ball pool single, 8-ball pool single, 3 cushion carrom single.

Any country can field two cueists in the singles, one pair in the doubles and a four member squad in the team event, competitions for which would be held on kock-out basis.

Indian men have traditionally been a dominant force in the world of billiards and snooker and the women contingent has proved that they were not too far behind at the world stage.

National Billiards champion Anuja Thakur recently won the WLBSA World Women Billiards championship and also pocketed the Snooker Doubles and Plate titles.

Her sister Meenal Thakur was a beaten semifinalist in the IBSF World Snooker championship last year.

India's Pankaj Advani is the reigning World and Asian Billiards Champion while Alok Kumar holds the Asian Snooker crown.