Fernando New World Champion
For the 1st time in the history of the Carrom World Cup, a champion has emerged outside the Indian subcontinent. Nishant Fernando the Sri Lankan veteran played amazing carrom throughout the tournament to deservingly break the Indian monopoly on the world circuit, winning the world title soundly defeating C. Bharthidasan of India 2 matches to 0.
Overwhelming crowd favorite Fernando won the first game of his world title final against his formidable opponent Bharthidasan 25-4. And, continuing to play an aggressive game he quickly subdued his opponent in the second game 25-10.
An ecstatic crowd of over 600 Sri Lnakan spectators who jam-packed the Galadari Hotel were jubilant at having their local lad lifting the world crown. This was somewhat of a consolation to their cricket team’s T20 World Cup defeat to West Indies in the final a few weeks ago in Colombo.
Yogesh got back some pride claiming the third place beating the youngster from Hyderabad, K. Srinivas 11-25, 25-14 & 25-5.
Fernando was in great form in his semi-final match against 20 year old K. Srinivas of India. In a thrilling game he defeated Srinivas 25-18 & 25-21. In the other semi-final, favorite Yogesh Pardeshi had a rude awakening by his team mate Barthidarsan. In the first game it was see-saw all the way until Bharthidasan pipped Yogesh to the finish. He also had a white slam in his upset win over the current world title holder Yogesh 25-24 & 25-4.
In the women’s final, an all Indian affair, the former world champion Rashmi Kumari dethroned the current twice world champion I.Ilavazhaki 25-12 & 25-10. Rashmi was in great form and did not allow her renown opponent and colleague Ilavazhaki to get into the game winning both the games easily.
In the 3rd place, Kavita Somanchi defeated Parimala Devi 25-12 & 25-23 in an interesting encounter between the two Indians.
Earlier in the semi-finals, Ilavazhaki beat Parimala Devi 25-3 & 25-20, while Rashmi Kumari defeated Kavita Somanchi 25-2 & 25-18.
Prakash Gaikwad the current Asian champion won the Swiss Round Robin League, finishing on top after eight rounds of play. Nishant Fernando came in second, with Yogesh Pardeshi and K. Srinivas following third and fourth respectively.
Detailed report on the world cup can be expected on Kya Baat Hai soon, and thanks for following www.carromcanada.com. We love feedbacks.
CHALLA EXCELS
Sekhar Challa showed classy play against Srinivas of India. Despite losing 0-25 in the first game, Sekhar held his nerves and came back very strongly to beat K.Srinivas 25-0 in the second. In the 3rd Srinivas took all the chances that came his way and beat Sekhar 25-0 in a very interesting encounter.
2 USA players in last 16
Jayadeva Suryadevara and Challa entered the last 16 easily beating Amila Deelipa of Qatar and Toru Matsubara of Japan 2-0. In the 16, Jayadev and Challa both took their formidable opponents Moniruzzaman (Bangladesh) and Srinivas (India) to the distance losing 1-2 in both matches.
4 USA and 2 Canadians in last 32
Vishal Karangutkar and Neil Khatu qualified into the knock-out stage from their respective groups. Vishal losing his match to Prakash Gaikwad (India) 2-0 and Neil was beaten by Chamil Cooray (Sri Lanka) 2-0. Francis D’Costa and Manuel Coelho from Canada also qualified into the round of 32 winning 2 of their 3 league matches. The other Canadian Wajahat Mohammed had a tough group and failed to qualify.
Francis was pitted against the World, Asian and Indian Champion Yogesh Pardeshi and succumbed to his powerful opponent 2-0. A video tape on this match will be made available soon. Manuel also had a tall task against Nishant Fernando of Sri Lanka who is the Sri Lankan ace for many years and was a key figure in Sri Lanka winning the last world cup in France. Manuel as expected lost to Fernando 2-0, but took 7 points in the 1st game. Overall the North American contingent of 7 performed very well, with 6 making it into the last 32.
All 4 players from India, Yogesh, Prakash, Srinivas and C.Bharthidasan are in the quarters. The 2 Sri Lankans are Fernando and Cooray, along with the 2 Bangladeshi Hafizur Rahman and Moniruzzaman. A match up between Yogesh and Fernando seems very likely
Fernando World Champion
