Former sub-junior national champion Lalit Dahiya suffered a shocking 1-3 defeat against Siddharth Raheja on the opening day of the RKG Snooker Masters North Zone championship, here today.
Dahiya, the 13th seed in the championship, lost chances galore against a lesser-known opponent to become the first casualty in the 10-day-long event.
The Delhi lad was not in his elements today as he failed to construct any substantial break at the Megapool Snooker Academy in Dwarka.
In other matches of the day, Hitesh Sethi won a hard-fought contest against Tarun Agarwal 3-2 while Shrenik Jain comfortably beat Jyotirmay Pant 3-0.
Manmeet Bhatia of Megapool Academy survived a major scare against Tejandra Choudhary before emerging victorious 3-2. Harpreet Singh defeated Azim Khan 3-1 while Pulkit Thupral outclassed Amit Chaudhary by an identical margin.
Ace cueists Sourav Kothari and Dhruv Sitwala will be seen in action from March 14 when they play their respective tournament openers.
The event is a build-up to the RKG-Khar Gymkhana Snooker Masters 2013, India's biggest Pro-Am Snooker tournament, from May 6 to 13 in Mumbai.
The tournament, sponsored by former vice president of Delhi Billiards and Snooker Association, Ravindra Gupta and a brain child of two-time Asian champion Yasin Merchant, will boast of four top UK professionals and an equal number of Indian amateurs -- Pankaj Advani, Aditya Mehta, Yasin Merchant and Alok Kumar.
The prize money of Rs 22 lakh on offer is the biggest in India.
