Patna boy wins bronze at Ireland snooker meet

PATNA: Shivam Arora from Patna made Bihar proud once again by winning bronze medal in the 2013 IBSF World 6-red Snooker Championship at Carlow in Ireland on October 6. Indian women's pair of Vidya Pillai and Arantxa Sanchis claimed the team title while Chitra Magimairajan and Varshaa Sanjeev won the women's team bronze.
Shivam lost to Duane Jones of Wales in the semifinals 5-2 (55-14, 0-43, 16-33, 38-06, 27-36, 22-36, 01-39) to secure a bronze.
The Bihar boy is among the six Indian wildcards to compete with 64 top snooker professionals from all over the world, including Pankaj Advani and Aditya Mehta, in the inaugural Indian Open Professional Snooker Championship starting in New Delhi from October 14. The event will offer prize money of £300,000 (Rs 3 crore), with the winner to take home £50,000.
On his return from Ireland, Shivam told TOI over phone from Delhi on Thursday he was training hard under his coach and mentor, the legendary Yasin Merchant, who had once said, "Rarely have I seen this kind of fire and enthusiasm in a person as young as Shivam Arora."
Son of Saroj and Ashok Arora, a businessman living in Krishna Apartment in S K Puri area in the state capital, Shivam hopes to penetrate into the last 16 of the championship, which is the first-ever ranking event to be held in India. "It will be a great feat for me if I manage to reach the last 16 playing for the first time in a professional tournament with so many stalwarts in the fray," said 27-year-old Shivam, who has been playing snooker since 2002. He was eight times Bihar state champion, before winning National 6-Red Snooker Championship in Mumbai in 2012 and All India Open Snooker Championship, Deccan Gymkhana, Pune, 2012 and 2013.
Talking about the Ireland championship, Shivam said it was an intense competition among players from 29 countries including England, Thailand and host Ireland.
"I dropped just a couple of frames on my way to the last eight. I was three frames down against Krzysztof Wrobel of Poland in the quarterfinals but eventually won 5-4. But, the law of averages caught up with me. After playing three consecutive matches, I had to play the semis late evening the same day and lost to Duane Jones," he summed up.