Title holder’s flight from the exam hall to the snooker table

“I am happy to have won this tournament. It is a pleasure playing a high pressure event like this and especially with my CBSE board exam happening simultaneously,” said an elated Shrikrishna. 

In fact, it has been a long season for Shrikrishna. He has been playing continuously from August last year. But the 17-yearold did well to combine studies and his game. His father Suryanarayanan read up his lessons and explaind the concepts, principles and analysed the case study with him. “He studies and answers the questions to his mother which gives him the confidence to write the exams. This also establishes a comfort among the three of us in the family. Because of the board exams and practicals, he missed the National Men’s Snooker this year at Bangalore. He also has missed the Asian U21 Snooker Championship that concluded a couple of days ago at Myanmar,” said Suryanarayanan.

According to Shrikrishna, chief referee R B Ganesh insisted that Shrikrishna has to play in the YMCA tournament. He accommodated Shrikrishna’s exam schedule and fixed matches based on his time availability. “We thank him for the support. Shrikrishna has been playing as well during the exams. It is just that he has to play a tournament which is competitive,” said Suryanarayanan. 

Shrikrishna started playing from the Round of 32, the seeding given to him in the tournament. His first match was against Ashwin which he won 4-1. In the pre-quarterfinals, he played Peter Paul of Railways and won 4-2. The quarter-final was against Siddharth Rao which he won 4-0. He beat Arvind Kumar of Railways in the semi-final.

“The challenge was, all three matches, the  pre-quarterfinals, quarter-final and semifinal were on the same day leaving no time for studies at a crucial period,” said Shrikrishna.

Fortunately, Sunday was a holiday giving him time to catch up with his studies. Though he has not been pushing himself too much in the tournament managing breaks of 83, 73, 71, 65, 57, 53, 51 in addition to quite a few 40s, he was in his elements in the final. 

Shrikrishna said his immediate priority is to improve his fitness after finishing the board exams. The key tournaments would be the IBSF World U-18 and U-21 Snooker tournaments for which the dates have not been announced. “The focus is, fitness, train and practice. He would surely jump into the swimming pool as often which he has been missing for about the last four months now. That is his major passion,” said Suraynarayanan, who is also his coach. 

Shrikrishna was all praise for YMCA Madras and YMCA Vepery in particular for organising the tournament in style. “The venue is excellent. It is a pleasure playing on these 100-odd years tables that have their own legacies and stories. The ambience is fantastic and very motivating to perform. We are not able to see any compromise,” said the young cueist.