Aditya Mehta offered glimpses of hitting form with an unfinished 134 against Yogesh Sharma on his way to a second win in the round robin snooker league match of the Manish 79th National billiards and snooker championships here on Tuesday.
Drawn in a group from where he's expected to have a comfortable run into first round of the knock-out, Aditya took the first two frames without much fuss and provided sufficient spark to lift the snooker event from its mundane proceedings.
Andhra Pradesh's Lucky Vatnani, Chandigarh's Sumit Talwar, West Bengal's Brijesh Damani and RSPB's Shahbaaz Adil Khan, Siddharth Parikh, Durga Prasad and R. Girish, with three wins, entered the round of 32. Girish scored a thrilling black ball finish against Faisal on Monday.
The No. 3 seed Neeraj Kumar is almost certain to make an early exit having suffered his second straight defeat at the hands of Damani.
The results (best of five frames): Group A: Aditya Mehta (PSPB) bt Yogesh Sharma (Mah) 3-0; Sunil Kumar (HP) bt Aneesh Saini (Har) 3-0.
Group B: Alok Kumar (PSPB) bt Lalsangzela (Miz) 3-0; Bharat Sisodiya (MP) bt Pulkit Thukral (Del) 3-2.
Group C : Bhadresh Panchal (Guj) bt Aamir Hussain (WB) 3-2; Aamir Husain (WB) bt Sajan Bopanna (Kar) 3-2; Brijesh Damani (WB) bt Neeraj Kumar (RSPB) 3-0, bt Bhadresh 3-0.
Group D: Sarang Shroff (Mah) bt K. Venketesham (RSPB) 3-2; I.H. Manudev (Kar) bt Yogesh Kumar (Kar) 3-0; Yogesh bt Pratik Jain (MP) 3-1.
Group E: Kamal Chawla (RSPB) bt Anand Raghuvanshi (Mah) 3-0; Himanshu Jain (AP) bt Kunal Manchanda (Raj) 3-0; Anand Raghuvanshi (Mah) bt Anuj Sharma (Goa) 3-1; Chawla bt Himanshu 3-0.
Group F: Pankaj Advani (PSPB) bt Dhaval Makwana (Guj) 3-0; Nikhil Ootam (Mah) bt Vivek Chopra (Pun) 3-1; Rajay Khaneja (Chd) bt Dhaval Makwana (Guj) 3-0; Advani bt Nikhil 3-2.
Group G: Manan Chandra (PSPB) bt Rishit Jain (Del) 3-2; Divya Sharma (Har) bt Dhruv Varma (Pun) 3-2, bt Jeet Kishore Das (Ori) 3-1, bt Rishit 3-1; Manan Chandra bt Divya 3-1.
Group H: Rafat Habib (RSPB) bt Varun Madan (Del) 3-0; Varun Madan (Del) bt Sukumar Barman (Asm) 3-0; I.V. Rajiv (AP) bt Ahsan-Ul-Haque (Orissa) 3-0.
Group I: Lucky Vatnani (AP) bt Rupesh Shah (PSPB) 3-1, bt Mridul Das (Asm) 3-0; J. Varun Kumar (TN) bt Amarnath Sharma (Meg) 3-0.
Group J: Sourav Kothari (PSPB) bt Vinayak Agrawal (UP) 3-0; Sumit Talwar (Chd) bt Vinayak Agarwal (UP) 3-1; A.R. Arjun (Kar) bt A. Deepak (Kar) 3-1.
Group K: Vijay Nichani (TN) bt Pushpinder Singh (RSPB) 3-1, bt Rahul Bhargava (Raj) 3-0; Shivam Arora (Bihar) bt Vipin Premi (UP) 3-0.
Group L: Durga Prasad (RSPB) bt Devendra Joshi (PSPB) 3-1, bt Rupesh Chauhan (HP) 3-0; Md. Shoaib Khan (WB) bt Akshay Kumar (UP) 3-2.
Group M: Shahbaaz Adil Khan (PSPB) b Shankar Rao (AP) 3-0, bt M. Senthil (TN) 3-0; Shankar Rao (AP) bt Volney Gomendis (Goa) 3-0; M. Senthil (TN) bt Kamal Rohmetra (J&K) 3-0.
Group N: Sandeep Gulati (Del) bt Rishabh Pandya (Mah) 3-0; Lalrina Renthlei (Miz) bt Gunjan Patel (Guj) 3-1; Rishabh Pandya (Mah) bt Imran Ganj (TN) 3-1.
Group O: Hasan Badami (Mah) bt Rushabh Jain (Mah) 3-2; Siddharth Parikh (RSPB) bt Rushabh Jain (Mah) 3-1; Dhvaj Haria (Guj) bt Shyam Jagtiani (WB) 3-0.
Group P: R. Girish (RSPB) bt Anupam Jha (Bihar) 3-0; Manish Jain (WB) bt Rovin D'Souza (Mah) 3-1; Rovin D'Souza (Mah) by Faisal Khan (RSPB) 3-0.
