The Hindu : Sport : Aditya Mehta bags maiden boys' title

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Jan 09, 2006

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Sport

Aditya Mehta bags maiden boys' title

S.R. Suryanarayan

His long potting and deft handling of the reds stood out when it mattered most

PHOTO: K. PICHUMANI

ON THE RISE: It was dream come true for Aditya Mehta

CHENNAI: Aditya Mehta's dream was fulfilled on Sunday. The 20-year-old from Maharashtra finally had his moment when he beat reigning champion Pankaj Advani four frames to two to bag his maiden junior boys's snooker title in the LIC-BSNL National billiards and snooker championship here.

After his loss to Pankaj in the billiards title-round earlier, Aditya had said, "Well, let's see what happens in snooker". As he visualised and worked for, the important round-robin match went his way through a calculated and copybook snooker played by him. If in the opening two frames, he rarely allowed Pankaj an opportunity; thereafter Aditya played a waiting game and ensured the advantage did not slip his hands.

Cool head

A feature of Aditya's display was his long potting and deft handling of the reds. He knew an opportunity missed against an opponent of Pankaj's talent meant a difference between a win and a loss. Keeping a cool head and taking his time in each visit, Aditya showed he was in fine nick right from the word go. A break of 85 in the first frame and then a 54 in the next set the tone.

It must be said the balls did not roll the way Pankaj wanted but clever that he was, he made several efforts to snooker his rival with soft touches and at times burst his way ahead to take two frames. But nothing worked in the end. Infact it was he who was at the receiving end in the sixth frame thrice in a row, lost points on `foul and a miss', thanks to Aditya's perfect placing of the cue ball behind the brown near the bottom cushion.

The results:

Snooker: Junior semifinal round-robin: Places 1-2: Aditya Mehta (Mah) bt Pankaj Advani (PSPB) 85-28, 103-1, 8-63, 63-51, 15-78, 70-38. Places 3-4: Pankaj Advani bt Faizal Khan (Del) 103-12, 56-71, 81-1, 105-4, 99-16; Aditya Mehta bt Lucky Vatnani (AP) 31-65, 70-35, 20-65, 76-6, 74-26, 64-36; Lucky Vatnani bt Faizal Khan 1-87, 63-16, 41-69, 2-62, 57-12, 58-44, 70-15.

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