“Priyabrat Patnaik Memorial Classic”, Snooker Open Tournament

“Priyabrat Patnaik Memorial Classic”, Snooker Open Tournament

As a tribute to the late IAS Priyabrat Patnaik, a 3-day long (14^th Jan- 16^th Jan), Snooker Open Tournament was organised at the Bhubaneswar Club. A highly decisive bureaucrat, an incisive personality thought wise, pen wise and speech wise, Patnaik had scripted his own story. Inaugurated by Patnaik’s wife Lipsa Mishra on 14th January 2022, the event has been organised on the occasion of his 69th birthday on 17th January, 2022. The inauguration was attended by the Jt. Secretary and Committee Members of Bhubaneswar Club, CEO Surge Sports and other esteemed members. 

Patnaik had a great aptitude in mentoring sporting talents irrespective of genre and has been their pillar of support. To name a few are Budhia Singh – marathon child prodigy, Amrita Mohapatra – only female senior national Cueist from Odisha and many others. 

The tournament concluded on 16th January, 2022 with its first winner, Ashutosh Padhy who also won the Highest Break Trophy. Dr. Rakesh Roshan Pradhan, a heart surgeon at AMRI, was the runners up. The score in the finals was 3 – 0. The cash awards given out to the winner and the runners up were sponsored by Patnaik’s daughter, Sonali Patnaik who resides in the US. 

On the 2nd day, four seeded players, Asutosh Padhy, Kunal Agarwal, Amiya Ranjan Nayak and Dr. Rakesh Roshan Pradhan stormed into the semi-finals amongst 38 participants. Priyanka Agarwal, ex Junior National Runner Up was the lone women quarter finalist in this tournament.

The prize distribution ceremony was presided by Chairperson, Western Odisha Development Council, Asit Tripathy and Secretary, BSAO, Srimoy Kar. Other eminent guests included Principal Secretary, Finance Department, Vishal Dev; Unit Head, AMRI Nilanjana Mukherjee, and the committee members of the club.

Patnaik has also mentored the Judo Association of Odisha which won a lot of accolades at the national level and continued to do so in his memory. But he had a special affinity towards billiards and snooker which resulted in Odisha not only hosting Billiards & Snooker National Championships but also the IBSF World Billiards Championship in 1996 ( NALCO OPEN ). 

In the closing ceremony, the sponsor Lipsa Mishra thanked the Club authorities for their unstinted support in the endeavour, CEO Surge Sports Amrita Mohapatra for organizing the tournament as its Technical Director and all the participants. She reiterated that this Memorial Tournament will expand its base from next year as an Annual State Championship and with support; growth and right direction will scale it up to a National level championship. Secretary BSAO, Kar assured all support to make the trophy an important annual event in the cue sports ecosystem of the state and carve a special place in the national scene gradually.