Indian cueist prosper on Day 4; keeps title hopes alive
Hyderabad | Wednesday, Nov 18 2009 IST
 

Having defeated Ryan Somaratna of Sri Lanka 4-0, Alok Kumar of India kept hopes alive for the top spot at the knock-out stage of the mens event in the ONGC-IBSF World Snooker Championship 2009 being held in Hall 3 of Hyderabad International Convention Centre, Hyderabad.

Kumar has yet to loose a frame in the four matches that he has played so far in Group J. Close on his heels for the top spot is Mohd. Shehab of UAE who has still to concede a frame in two of his league matches that he has played so far. The two players, highly fancied for the top honor in the mens event, Tian Pengfie of China and Alfie Burden of England had comfortable wins against Bernard Ballestra of France and Eriks M Maldaris of Canada respectively. Amongst the other Indian, Kamal Chawla and Brijesh Damani exhibited much improved performance as they registered comfortable wins against Ajeya Prabhakar of USA and Andreas Ploner of Australia respectively. While Chawla consistently potted balls from every angle with commendable precision, Damani on the other hand used his tactical play to keep his opponent at bay. However, the biggest disappointment of the day was Aditya Mehtas defeat at the hands of Patrick Einsle of Germany. Einsle took over the control of the match from the very beginning and captured first two frame without giving Aditya any chance to reach a double figure score. The third frame saw Aditya recovering from his early jitters and fought back boldly to reach for a tie situation. After a couple of safety exchanges by both players on the re-spotted black, it was Einsle who got the first opening and converted that with great aplomb. Down by 0-3, a visibly demoralized Aditya thereafter could not put up any fight as Einsle sealed the frame and match in his favour with a well crafted break of 52. In the ladies section, Vidya Pillai of India maintained her all-win record in her Group B league matches by demolishing her compatriot Neeta Sanghvi by 3-0. It was also a good day for Suniti Damani of India as she posted her first win in the championship by defeating Nalha Sunni of Bahrain 3-0. It was, however, not a good day for ace Indian cueist Chitra Magimairaj and Anuja Chandra, as both were shown the door by Santhinee Jaisuekul of Thailand and Ng On Yee of Hong Kong respectively. In the Masters category, the former IBSF World Snooker Champion and winner of the masters category in the year 2007, Darren Morgan of Wales enthralled the crowd with his classical touch play and won comfortably against Paul Thomerson of Australia 3-0 with a nicely compiled break of 52 in the third frame. Ace Indian cueist Geet Sethi recovered from his yesterdays bad form and posted a comfortable win against Abdul Khamis of Qatar and kept his hope alive for the top spot in his group. Champion of the last edition, Dene OKane of New Zealand maintained his all-win record so far in his Group by defeating Prasanna Madumage of Sri Lanka 3-0.

-- (UNI) -- 18SPD66.xml

 

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