Anas Ali of Surat produced another steady performance to edge out Ispreet Singh Chadha of Mumbai 4-3 in a well-contested second round encounter of the 4th Indian Open snooker qualifying tournament at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) here today.
In a match of fluctuating fortunes, Chadha started well by winning the opening frame before the Surat cueist Ali grabbed the next two to go ahead 2-1.
Ispreet charged back by easily winning the fourth to draw level at 2-all. Later, Ali and Chadha traded the next two frames, with the former winning a close fifth, and taking the match to the decider.
Ali held his nerves in the crucial seventh frame to scrape through for a hard-earned 13-63 61-31 49-40 16-66 49-45 36-69 61-28 victory.
In another match that went the distance, Mumbai challenger Hasan Badami showed plenty of grit and gumption to overcome Mukund Baradia 4-3, with the frames scores reading 62-69 55-19 53-56 66-31 60-75 71-14 73-27 in his favour, to progress to the third round.
Another Mumbai cueist Rovin D'Souza faced no such problems against Vilas V as he comfortably went on to complete a 4-0 win in another second round match.
The qualifying tournament is being conducted by BSAM (Billiards and Snooker Association of Maharashtra).
Results (Round 2, all from Mumbai unless stated otherwise): Sumit Saldulkar beat Suyesh Moorpuna 4-2; Taaha Khan (Pune) beat S Magesh 4-2; Rovin D'Souza beat Vilas V 4-0; Rahul Sachdev beat Nikhil Ghadge 4-0; Nikhil Saigal beat Chintamani Jadhav (Pune) 4-2.
Anas Ali (Surat) beat Ispreet Singh Chadha 4-3; Manav Panchal beat Nitesh Madan 4-1; V Subramanian beat Avenish Shah 4-1; Manish Jain beat Kekoo Nickolson 4-0; Shoaib Khan beat Mayank Bhavsar 4-0; Sunil Jain beat Shabaaz Khan 4-3; Zubin Lelinwala beat Pramod Pole 4-0; Aparjeet Mital beat Pawan K 4-1; Hasan Badami beat Mukund Baradia 4-3.
