Aditya Agrawal of Railways snatched a 7-6 thrilling win to storm into the quarter-finals of the Rs. 1.89 lakh NSCI-BoI All India 9-Ball Open Pool tournament here today.
Tamil Nadu-based Rafath Habib of Railways, Brijesh Damani of Indian Oil, Laxman Rawat of Triace and Delhi duo Altamash Saifi and Avinash Kumar were the others to enter the last eight.
Agrawal, who sneaked into the pre-quarter-finals from Group F, rallied brilliantly from 1-3 to overcome compatriot Malkeet Singh in the closest encounter of the day. Agrawal fell behind once more at 4-5 before taking the lead at 6-5 and was forced into the decider in the race-to-seven racks contest.
In other tight matches, Shivam Arora of local Khar Gymkhana beat club rival Ishpreet Singh Chadha 7-4, while Siddharth Parikh halted Faisal Khan by the same margin in an all-Railways tie.
Results: Pre-quarter-finals: Rafath Habib (Rlys) bt Deepak Khubchandani (Khar Gym) 7-2; Brijesh Damani (PSPB) bt Mahesh Jagdale (Elphinstone CC) 7-2; Aditya Agrawal (Rlys) bt Malkeet Singh (Rlys) 7-6; Laxman Rawat (Triace) bt Rovin D'Souza (Rlys) 7-2; Altamash Saifi (Delhi) bt Rishabh Thakkar (Khar Gym) 7-3; Avinash Kumar (Delhi) bt Nikhil Ootam (CCI) 7-2; Shivam Arora (Khar Gym) bt Ishpreet Singh Chadha (Khar Gym) 7-4; Siddharth Parikh (Rlys) bt Faisal Khan (Rlys) 7-4.
