Snooker stars from around the world descending on the capital to battle it out in the first ever Indian Open provided the watershed moment for Indian cuesport as the country's players rounded off a successful year with titles coming their way at the international level.
India's number one snooker player, Aditya Mehta, was the cynosure of all eyes courtesy his gold medal-winning feat in the World Games in Cali, Columbia and his runner-up finish in the USD 3,00,000 Indian Open in October as the old war horses of the Indian green baize continued chasing their sporting dreams globally.
If Mehta and eight-time world champion Pankaj Advani rewrote history in major ranking snooker events, Rupesh Shah, Brijesh Damani, Alok Kumar and Manan Chandra tasted success at the Asian Billiards and Snooker Championships.
The leading pair of Vidya Pillai and Arantxa Sanchis clinched the Team Championship gold in the IBSF World 6-red Snooker Championship at Carlow, Ireland in October.
Globally, however, cuesport found itself mired in a damaging match-fixing controversy when former world number five Stephen Lee was handed a 12-year ban and fined 40,000 pounds after being found guilty of seven match-fixing charges by an independent tribunal in the UK.
The Englishman was charged following an investigation into eight matches -- four at the Malta Cup in 2008, two at the UK Championship 2008, and one each at the China Open in 2009 and the World Championship the same year.
Indian cuesport too endured its fair share of controversy when former World Billiards champion and Padma Bhushan awardee Michael Ferreira was summoned by the Mumbai Economic Offences wing for his alleged role in the Rs 450 crore Qnet scam, which reportedly duped over 12 lakh investors in the country by using a banned pyramid scheme.
