Mehta favourite for Manisha Nationals Men’s snooker title
PUNE: Defending champion Aditya Mehta will start as favourite ahead of a huge field that for the first time will have a 32-player knockout draw after 80 cueists would begin league phase in 16 groups, in the National Snooker championship that begins at the PYC Hindu Gymkhana here on Monday.
The 78th Manisha-National Billiards and Snooker championship is being organized by the Billiards and Snooker Association of Maharashtra and the PYC Hindu Gymkhana. The championship will come to an end on February 4 when the National snooker champion will be crowned.
The 2009 Asian Indoor Games gold medallist Mehta, the first Indian to play in the pro Tour in England since Yasin Merchant played in the 1990s, is a class of player who has his focus on just one format of the green baize sport—snooker.
Unlike others, including multiple champion Pankaj Advani, Mehta decided to concentrate only on snooker after he got the golden break in the 2008-09 season when the Mumbai cueist was nominated by Asia to play on the pro Tour.
Top seeded Mehta heads Group A, while the 2011 runner-up Alok Kumar is in Group B. Top two cueists from each group after the league phase will make it to the 32-player knockout draw which will be played over best-of-seven frames till the round of 16. Quarterfinals and semifinals will be best-of-nine frames and final best-of-11 frames. The league phase will be best-of-five frames wherein 22 qualifiers would join 58 direct entries from state and affiliated units of the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI).
Even though Mehta will be the man to beat, one cannot discount former champions who have every potential to upset the best in the business on a given day. Foremost in the reckoning will the four-time national snooker champion Pankaj Advani, who is no less a force with 21 balls on the table as with three balls.
Advani, who became national billiards champion for the sixth time here on Friday, too will be a contender even though he finished sixth at the last nationals in Chennai. Advani, who in 2003 became the IBSF World Snooker champion, is the only second Indian after OB Agarwal to win snooker world title—something that his contemporaries will not forget in a hurry.
Advani head Group F, while other major contenders are also parked in first 10 groups. Sourav Kothari, Manan Chandra, Rupesh Shah, Kamal Chawla and Neeraj Kumar also have capability to upset the applecart of the best.
But the most difficult cueist to play against will be seasoned Alok Kumar, who has scored an highest break of 142 out of maximum 144. For someone who became national champion as early as in 1992, has five title so far in his cabinet. Alok is also the most versatile cueist in India having won national titles in every format of the sport—billiards, snooker, 9-ball pool, 8-ball pool, and carombole.
He had finished runner-up to Aditya Mehta after having gone past other youngsters and this time too he will be keen to get back to his winning ways as he knows age is catching up with him.
Results: Men’s Snooker (Qualifying) Pools:
Group A: Aditya Mehta (PSPB), Aneesh Saini (Har), Sunil Kumar (HP), Qualifier, Sumesh Turki (J and K).
Group B: Alok Kumar (PSPB), Bharat Sisodia (MP), Pulkit Thukral (Del), Qualifier, Peter Lalrintluanga (Miz).
Group C: Neeraj Kumar (Rlys), Sajan Bopanna (Kar), Aamir Hussain (Ben), Qualifier, 5 Bhadresh Panchal (Guj).
Group D:IH Manudev (Kar), Sarang Shroff (Mah), K Venkatesham (Rlys), Qualifier, Pratik Jain (MP).
Group E: Kamal Chawla (Rlys), Simranjit Singh (Raj), Himanshu Jain (AP), Qualifier, Nigel D’Souza (Goa).
Group F: Pankaj Advani (PSPB), Vivek Chopra (Pun), Nikhil Ootam (Mah), Qualifier, Rajat Khaneja (Chd).
Group G: Manan Chandra (PSPB), Jeet Kishore Das (Ori), Divya Sharma (Har), Qualifier, Dhruv Varma (Pun).
Group H:Rafath Habib (Rlys), IV Rajeev (AP), Ahsan Ul-Haq (Ori), Qualifier, Sukumar Barman (Asm).
Group I: Rupesh Shah (PSPB), Varun Kumar (TN), Amarnath Sharma (Meg), Qualifier, Bhargav Lahkar (Asm)
Group J: Sourav Kothari (PSPB), Sumit Talwar (Chd), Vinayak Agarwal (UP), Qualifier, AR Arjun (Kar).
Group K: Pushpinder Singh (Rlys), Shivam Arora (Bih), Qualifier, Rahul Bhargava (Raj).
Group L: Devendra Joshi (PSPB), Akshay Kumar (UP), Qualifier, Rupesh Chauhan (HP).
Group M:Shahbaz Khan (PSPB), Kamal Rohmetra (J and K), Qualifier, Qualifier, Ryan Khan (Goa).
Group N:Sundeep Gulati (Del), Lalrina Renthlei (Miz), Qualifier, Qualifier, Imran Ganj (TN).
Group O:Hasan Badami (Mah), Dhvaj Haria (Guj), Qualifier, Qualifier, Siddharth Parikh (Rlys).
Group P: Faisal Khan (Rlys), Manish Jain (Ben), Qualifier, Qualifier, Anupam Jha (Bih).
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