The Hindu : Sport / Billiards & Snooker : Aditya Mehta wards off O'Donoghue's challenge

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 27, 2006

Sport

Sport - Billiards & Snooker

Aditya Mehta wards off O'Donoghue's challenge

Geet Sethi

Prestatyn (WALES): Day five of the IBSF World Snooker Grand Prix underway at the Pontins Resort here in Prestatyn, North Wales, saw India's National junior snooker champion, the 20-year-old Aditya Mehta, exhibiting consistency and caution to quell the challenge of Republic of Ireland's Brenden O'Donoghue winning 4-1 with contributions of 47 in the third frame.

Having lost a marathon contest 3-4 against David Hogan — a match which commenced at 9 a.m. and concluded at 17.30 hrs on Saturday after the players were pulled off twice to enable the timely start of the next session — an exhausted Mehta cashed in on his stamina and concentration in eliminating a player of O'Donoghue's pedigree.

Shrugging off the disheartening effects of a 3-4 reversal after he enjoyed a 3-2 advantage, Mehta provided sufficient proof of his intentions and ability to make it to the last-32 knockout stage of the tournament with the fluent victory over O'Donoghue. With mixed fortunes on Saturday, Mehta has now lost two matches in six outings, but the emphatic 4-1 victory against O'Donoghue will assist him greatly in qualifying from a group which is being considered as the toughest of the eight groups.

Alok keeps winning

Alok Kumar, the 2005 National snooker champion cruised to a convincing 4-0 victory against Finland's Jyri Virtanen. The former Asian snooker champion however claimed that he is steadily rediscovering the one quality, which is so crucial and indispensable in the 22-ball sport. Having won four of his five matches played so far, Kumar is almost guaranteed of a place in the last 32 though he still has two tough matches ahead.

India's Pankaj Advani won his fifth successive match 4-0 against Hungary's Zsolt Fenyvesi to remain unbeaten in his Group D. Advani struggled in the opening two frames attributing the below par display to a light cue ball. He did inform the referee about the same, but in light of the referees' inability to find a replacement for the errant ball, the former 2003 IBSF World snooker champion adjusted his game accordingly compiling efforts of 62 in the third and 58 & 71 in the fourth.

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