Shobit hits a century break in North India Open snooker
Shobit Chandra hit a prize-money break of 104 to hog the limelight on day three of the Tavas Infradevelopers’s 5th North India Open Snooker Tournament, at the Green Baize Academy here on Friday.
Shobit, who a few years back had become India No 4 in the subjunior category, recorded day’s highest break against another Lucknow cueist Shubham Melhotra.
Though the break could have been even bigger, Shobit missed a sitter black with all the color balls spotted. This was Shobit’s first century break ever and that also in a tournament was quite remarkable.
The other smiling point for the game in the state was of the sixteen who advanced into the knockout stage, eight players are from UP and of the eight, three topped their respective group.
Akshay Kumar become seed no 1 for the re-seeding for the knockouts while Vinayak Agarwal tied for seed no 2 with Rajat Khenaja. Malkeet was the third who topped his group to secure no 6 position tying with Gagan Manchanda and Sahil Nayar.
In other matches of the day, Pushpender Singh, resigning champion’s match against Aneesh Saini, who had played the finals of the first edition of this tournament, was a battle that had the spectator’s at the edge of their seats.
Both known for their aggressive style with a blend of speed was a combination that was an absolute pleasure the match. In the decider frame one was not sure if one was watching snooker or ping pong as each player dominated one another till the end. It was Pushpinder was made the fatal mistake of missing the brown which Aneesh potted and cleared the table.
The match, which drew everybody’s attention, was Rajat Khaneja vs Ashar Abar. Though the match was totally one side, the excitement was in watching Rajat on the table. It was like watching a dancer performing his art to perfection. Even Ashar who was just a simple spectator to the performance had no regret of his loss.
On Saturday, eight pre-quarter and four quarter final matches would be played.
RESULTS
Anmooldeep Singh bt Himanshu Kashyap 3-2; Gagan Manchanda bt Dishad Ansari 3-0; Pushpender Singh bt Rominder Pahwa 3-0; Aneesh Saini bt Fahad Salar 3-1; Rajat Khaneja bt Sabih Uddin 3-1; Sumit Talwar bt Amit Arora 3-0; Malkeet Singh bt Shiledra Dangwal 3-1; Rajat Khenja bt Ashar Abrar 3-0; Vinayak Agarwal bt Jatin Rawat 3-0; Sahail Nayar bt Shobit Chandra 3-2; Aneesh Saini bt Pushpender Singh 3-2.