Avenish stages fine rally to down Joseph
A determined Avenish Shah of Cue Schooling escaped from the jaws of defeat as he made a solid recovery to record a come-from-behind 4-3 victory against Joseph Menezes of Otters Club in a best-of-7 frame third round match of the Matunga Gymkhana 6-Red Open Snooker Tournament 2018, sponsored and hosted by Matunga Gymkhana, under the auspices of BSAM and played at the gymkhana’s billiards hall.
Menezes, a marker at the Bandra club, quickly got off the blocks and with his vast experience took the first three frames to take a commanding lead and was one frame away from victory.
But, Avenish was not prepared to throw in the towel and instead tightened his game and compiled a timely break of 48 in the fourth, which gave him the boost and the confidence to win the remaining four frames on the trot to snatch a commendable 7-37, 21-42, 34-36(29 break), 50(48 break)-8, 42-6, 30-9 and 35-1) win.
Khar Gymkhana’s young talent Krish Gurbaxani showed great touch as he defeated Veer Singh Nagi (JVPG) 4-1 in another third- round match. Krish started steadily and shared the opening two frames with Veer Singh, but thereafter he was in complete control and singned off with a fluent run of 50 in the fifth as he closed out the contest winning at 28-19, 6-39, 43-8, 33-10 and 50(50)-0 victory.
CCI cueist Nikhil Ootam was in top form and blanked Chandu Kansodaria (MCF) by a convincing 4-0 (38(33)-20, 466, 33-4, 38-9) margin to advance to the 4thround. Sidhraj Shah (CCI) joined Ootam in the next round as he defeated Selven Samuel (Otters) 4-1 (55-9, 38-31, 28-32, 50-20, 30-17).
In the other matches, Jagdale overcame Zulfikar Saria (CCI) 4-2 (50(27)-16, 49-18, 4625, 2-50, 30-48, 44(42)-9), while Upsham tamed Abhishek Bajaj (NSCI) 4-1 (14-25, 39(33)-0, 36-27, 35-2, 44-22).