Bengal's cueists beat fancied opponents

Two Bengal players beat their fancied opponents even as Anurag Giri of Madhya Pradesh missed the chance of scoring the maximum break of 75 on day two of the National 6-Red Snooker Championship at the Bengal Rowing Club.
Neeraj Khemka of Bengal beat the fancied teen sensation Ishpreet Singh Chadha of Maharashtra by a close 4-3, while Binay Agarwala upset Odisha's state champion Ashutosh Padhy.
Ashutosh was leading 2-0 when Binay showing admirable composure won the next two frames to draw level.
However, Ashutosh once again capitalized in next frame to go up 3-2 but Binay stayed calm and played with the same consistency in next two frames to cause the upset, winning 4-3.

Giri could have been the first player to score the maximum break of 75 in Championship but his planning went awry as he opted for pink after potting the second red.
Later he realised that he was well-placed for the maximum but by then, the opportunity had already been missed.

Ishpreet, who has been making waves in the National and International circuits in both billiards and snooker, started the game positively with a sizzling break of 32 points in first frame and soon had a 2-frame lead but lost the momentum by losing the next 3 close frames with scores being 29-37, 18-33, 11-30.

He did restore parity by winning the 6th frame 39-00 but the seventh did not go his way as Khemka held his nerve to clinch the decider 43-12.
Rafath Habib of Railways Sports Promotion Board posted the second-highest break of the day with his 65 in the fourth frame in order to win 4-1 against Shaswat Shukla of Uttar Pradesh.