MUMBAI, Jan 14: National champion Sourav Kothari of Kolkata lost the opening-round match of the ‘NSCI Baulkline 3.0’ All India Snooker Open to Shivam Arora 3-5 here on Sunday.
Shivam, from Pune, played with a lot of resilience and looked in fine touch as he made some good breaks, including two unfinished century runs of 107 and 104, to shut the door on Kothari.
Shivam won 62-61, 13-99(70), 0-94(66), 87(54)-32, 107(107)-13, 104(104)-28, 32-74, and 61-50.
Multiple-time world champion Pankaj Advani, Aditya Mehta and Ishpreet Singh Chadha too won the first-round ties.
Defending champion Laxman Rawat made a positive start defeating Anant Mehta in five frames 60-13, 72-14, 64-15, 66-9, and 101(101)-12.
Bangalore’s Advani started with a 113-point break and went on to defeat Dilip Kumar of Chennai 5-1 (117-13, 74-21, 88-35, 71-27, 10-95, 88-10).
Former national champion Mehta enjoyed a good run and sidelined Mohsin Achhava 5-1 in another one-sided encounter.
The lanky Mumbai cueist Mehta started with a break of 75 and followed it with a break of 108 in the third and a 68 in the fifth as he cruised to a 76-11, 34-55, 112-2, 59-26, 77-21, and 57-40 win.
Mumbai’s Ishpreet stamped his class by recording a 5-2 win against city mate Anurag Bagri. (PTI)
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