Local challengers shine in snooker tournament
LUCKNOW : The day three of the 7th North India Open Snooker Tournament, being organized by Lucknow Cue Sports Association, had a mixed bag of matches, at the at The Green Baize on Tuesday. Four matches that were totally one sided were fun to watch but lacked the excitement of cliff hanger. All the four players won their matches in straight frames with ease Lucknow’s Taran Agarwal, known for his precise and fast game, gave no chance to his Moradabad opponent Rishab Shah.
Haryana cueist Ankur Nanda also made the game look easy as he demolished Allhabad’s Vinayak Singh and Muneer Hussain of Moradabad had no answers against Fahad Ahmed of Prayagraj as he went down without winning a single frame. And the last of the four was Lucknow’s own Rahul Singh who too did not let his opponent Sumit Agarwal open his score sheet. But the excitement of the day witnessed in the match between Lucknow’s Anubhav Shukla and Bavneet Walia from Punjab. Anubhav accumulated a lead of 44, but Bavneet came back with a break of 54 and required just pink to win the frame. But as he missed the pink and Anubhav got the chance to be back on the table, he potted both pink and black to win the frame. Second frame was not even close and it looked as Bavneet having lost the first frame after hitting a break of 54 had lost all confidence as he went down 63-22. But as the do-or-die frame for Banveet began there was a visible difference in his stride as he quickly made an amazing comeback winning the remaining 3 frames and the match 3-2. The decider frame was anybody’s game till Anubhav made a grave mistake and completely missed the pink giving Bavneet six points and a sitter pink, which Bavneet potted and won the match. The round of 32 matches begins on Wednesday.
RESULTS
Rahul Singh bt Sumit Agarwal 3-0 (68-45;78-47;88-23); Fahad bt Muneer Hussain 3-0 (102-08; 65-15; 78-23); Shanker Saini bt Ankur Agarwal 3-1 (09-49;80-25;58-47;74-25); Shwetabh Dixit bt Ahayat 3-2 (57-43;41-60;42-60; 68-38,64-54); Taran Agarwal bt Rishab Shah 3-0 (65-39; 75-44; 62-11); Aadil Malik bt Dilshad 3-2,