The Casa Copenhagen 6 red snooker national championship 2020 jointly organized by the Gujarat State Billiards Association & The Gujarat Sports club Ltd. under the auspices of the Billiards & Snooker Federation Of India, even as it entered its second day of the 13 days snooker action here at the Gujarat Sports club Ltd complex saw intense battles of the preliminary double elimination matches of the qualifying stage.
Meherzad Bhagwagar of the hosts was right on cue as he out potted talented youngster from Maharashtra, Sumehr Mago in a six frames battle which saw fierce competition between the two cueists.
With the score level at two frames all, Meherzad came into his own pocketing the balls with assurance to wrest the fifth frame but Sumehr fought tooth and nail in the sixth frame.
The frame was now on the final black ball on the colours stage when the victor sank the decisive black ball to win the tie by 39-22, 23-33,28-18,03-37,43-00 and 47-40 points and move into the next round.
Pondicherry cueist Raj Mohan who lost his first match last evening, made amends, as he gave an improved performance to dominate the player from Goa, Ravi Kamble in four straight frames by 58-27, 41-04, 40-37 and 27-15 points.
Trailing by 0-2 frames, Ravi had a good chance to draw back in the third frame but he floundered on the final black hurdle and Rajmohan made no mistake in pocketing the decisive black to win the frame and then did not look back as he added the fourth frame for a fine victory.
Taaha Khana of Maharashtra who has an unorthodox method of cue-delivery spoiled the party for Gujarat youngster, Siddhant Patel even as the parents of Siddhant looked on disconsolately from behind the glass curtain, so well conceived by the organizers.
Taaha potted some unbelievable shots from just nowhere, as he cleared all the balls from the yellow to the black ball on the colours stage of the first frame.
With the youngster lapsing into errors from positions of strength, Taaha easily wrapped up the second and third frames for a 3-0 lead.
Siddhant finally did put up a sembalance of a fight in the fourth but Taaha closed shop with some crucial pots at the vital stages of the frame to take the frame and match by 35-22, 33-01, 36-02 and 34-17 points.
Vidit Gawri of Jammu Kashmir was In good form as he unsettled Kerala player, Midhun M despatching him in five frames rather comfortably by 34-29, 44-11, 18-24, 67-07 and 42-00 points.
Vidit set the tone of the proceedings by easily winning the first two frames but Midhun rallied wel to take the third with some good long pots.
Stung by the reverse, Vidhut, tightening his concentration unleashed his potting and cue ball control skills to clear the brown, blue, pink and black balls in the fourth frame to forge ahead by 3-1 frames. Midhun faltered yet again in the fifth leaving Vidit with a chance, and the victor did not disappoint as he unleashed a break of 35 to seal the frame and match.
Abhishek Ahuja of Delhi playing with a lot of composure was too hot for Malav Parikh of the hosts, coming out trumps in four straight frames. Breaks of 44 and 41 in the third and fourth frames were the highlight of this match as he triumphed by 40-15, 31-08, 44-00 and 41-00 points in another one sided tie.
Even so the matches which went to the wire and were difficult to chose the winner till the last stage, were the matches between Vishwajeet Mohan of Uttar Pradesh Vs. Mohsin Acharya of Gujarat and the match between Arvind Kumar of RSPB and Senketh Mutha of Maharashtra.
The first one saw Vishwajeet open up a lead of three frames to one against Mohsin, but the latter fought back valiantly to take the next two frames to restore parity at 3-3 frames.
With the tie hanging by a thread on the decisive black, Vishwajeet was the luckier one as he edged out the loser when he sank the black ball to win by 43-37, 00-47, 75-19, 42-09, 05-36, 14-40 and 39-29 points.
In the other match, Arvind who has a fine touch, was down by 1-2 frames initially as Senketh played with a lot of poise, but striking a good patch, Arvind stole the show by pocketing the two frames that mattered to come out unscathed by 35-19, 21-38, 28-40, 47-26, 40-06, 31-55 and 31-19 points.
In other matches of the day, Shabaz Adil Khan of PSPB beat Rajiv Sahani by 4-1 frames.
Karmesh Patel of Gujarat beat Siddharth Patni of Madhya Pradeh of Madhya Pradesh by 4-3 frames.
K. Venkatesham of RSPB beat Anand Raghuvanshi of Maharashtra by 4-1 frames.
Rajat Khaneja of Haryana beat Shivam Madan of Uttarakhand by 4-2 frames.
Varun Kumar of Karnataka lost to P. Jhaveri of Gujarat by 4-3 frames in a virtual cliff hanger.
Syed Sikander of Tamil Nadu beat Adhi Patel of Gujarat by 4-1 frames.
Karthik BC of Karnataka beat Gaurav Malhotra of Haryana by 4-1 frames.
Jaison Malhotra of Delhi beat Yogesh Sharma of Maharashtra by 4-0 frames.
Saif Ali Khan of West Bengal beat Vikrant Mago of Punjab by 4-2 frames.
Piyush Kushawa of Madhya Pradesh beat Prateek Lal of Jharkhand by 4-1 frames.
Anurag Giri of Madhya Pradesh beat Nakul Patel of Gujarat by 4-1 frames.
Rovin D’Souza of RSPB beat Gunjan Patel of Gujarat by 4-0 frames.
Anuj Uppal of Delhi beat Dhruv Singh of Telengana by 4-1 frames.
and Harpreet Singh of Delhi beat Deep Shah of Gujarat by 4-0 frames.
Ishtmit Singh Malik
Media Coordinator,
2020 6 red snooker nationals
