Dhruv Sitwala Wins Maiden World Billiards Ranking Crown in Auckland
India’s Dhruv Sitwala defeated reigning world champion Peter Gilchrist 537-438 in the final of the 2024 Auckland Open in New Zealand.
The victory marks the first World Billiards ranking event crown of Sitwala’s career as he becomes the first player other than David Causier or Gilchrist to lift a ranking title in 2024.
A total of 18 players embarked on the Papatoetoe Cosmopolitan Club in Auckland for the three-day event which was the first of a double-header of ranking events staged in the New Zealand city this week.
Ranked 12th in the world, Sitwala arrived at the event as the third seed and topped his initial group comfortably with a clean sweep of victories over Steve Mifsud, Steven Allen, Jason Colebrook and Karthik Ramaswamy.
An impressive group stage performance meant that Sitwala was seeded directly into the quarter-finals where he overcame Ryan Mears by just three points to reach the last four.
A more comfortable victory by a margin of 400 points against New Zealand’s Grant Hayward saw Sitwala set up a title match against top seed Gilchrist, who had fired in the tournament high break of 281 as he defeated Alex Puan in the semi-finals.
The two-hour final contest was a close-fought affair that was ultimate settled by less than 100 points, but a duo of century break contributions from Sitwala allowed him to secure a 537-438 victory and complete a notable milestone in his career.
