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Calcutta: Local challenger Sourav Kothari shocked current Asian snooker champion Aditya Mehta 3-2 in a Group A match of the National Invitational Snooker Championship at Hindusthan Club on Monday.
By virtue of the win, Sourav moved to the top spot in the group and booked a quarter final berth. Sourav made a steady start when he won the first frame by 48 points. But Aditya showed great determination and won the next two frames with a comfortable margin.
When things looked as good as over for Sourav, he showed character to make a strong comeback by winning 73-34 and taking the match to the last frame. In the decider, Sourav potted brilliantly and won the frame 65-19 to seal the match 3-2.
Sourav Kothari said: “Aditya is the current Asian champion and is in a great form. My gameplan was to stick to the basics and use every opportunity which I would get. I needed to ensure that I didn’t give him easy pots.”
Aditya, on the other hand, said: “I made a terrible mistake in the fourth frame. The mistake cost me the game. But I will give credit to Sourav for playing some excellent snooker today.”
Kamal Chawla entered the quarter final after defeating veteran cueist Geet Sethi 3-1. Kamal dominated the match from the outset and pocketed the first two frames to take a 2-0 lead.
Results
Siddharth Parikh bt Abhishek Kedia 3-0 (68-13, 70-02, 65-14); Kamal Chawla bt Geet Sethi 3-1 (80-47, 50-23, 07-77, 67-33); Alok Kumar bt Manish Jain 3-0 (65-17, 91 (77)-0, 8148); Laxman Rawat bt Shahbaaz Adil Khan 3-0 (69-58, 78-14, 110-12); Brijesh Damani bt Devendra Joshi 3-1 (77-20, 63-21, 45-59, 61-53); Manan Chandra bt Rohit Rajgaria 3-0 (75-33, 68-50, 88-16); Sourav Kothari bt Aditya Mehta 3-2 (63-17, 14-96, 10-63, 73-34, 65-19)
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