Bengaluru, Nov 21:
With players getting into the grove, a number of century breaks were witnessed even as top Indians Pankaj Advani and Kamal Chawla won their third matches in succession in the group league of the Seaways IBSF World Snooker Championship in progress at Sree Kantheerava Indoor stadium here today. The action picked up further as foreign players were more at home and Indians too continued to show out on the third day of the competition.
Leading Indian stars Advani and Chawla, chalked out third successive wins to move closer to the knock-out stage, Rahul Ajay Sachdev gave a real fight but fell to the rising star and Chinese teenager Yan Bingtao.
The 2003 champion Advani, among the favourites for the title, who won his two tough duels in the first two matches, took mere 45 minutes to demolish Paul Schopf of Austria 4-0 with breaks of 71 in the first frame, 52 and 84 clearances in the fourth.
‘I took some chances today and played aggressively especially since my opponent did not punish me for my mistakes. Overall, it was a good win and I had the opportunity to experiment a bit, but there is still a long way to go,’ he said after the match. Meanwhile, Chawla had an untroubled outing against Jurgen Van Roy of Belgium winning by 4-1 with a break of 57 in the third frame.
‘A lapse in concentration in the fourth frame cost me the clear win. I am playing well otherwise and the playing conditions have certainly improved from the previous two days. Three wins out of three is a good start for me,’ the semi-finalist in 2010 said.
Meanwhile, Thailand’s Boonyarit Keattikun dazzled with two century breaks — 100 and 103 while drubbing Andrej Maksimov (Lituania) 4-0 and Welshman Gareth Allen crafted a 102 as he outplayed Indian wild card Divya Sharma 4-2. In the Masters section, another Thai Phisit Chandsri had a 101 break while overcoming India’s Kamaraj S H 3-0. The Other Indian men who won on the day were Shivam Arora, Laxman Rawal and Varun Madan. (UNI)
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