JOIN USShahbaz Khan made a shaky start to his defence of the National 6-Red snooker title when he struggled to a 4-2 win over qualifier Hemant Kumar of Railways in Group ‘A’ as the main draw matches commenced here on Wednesday.
Khan outsmarted his rival after taking a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven encounter.
Results: Men: Group ‘A’: Shahbaz Khan (PSPB) bt Hemanth Kumar (Rlys) 39-17, 36-0, 17-32, 41-7, 2-59, 58-5; Aayush Kumar (Pnb) bt Pulkit Thukral (Del) 0-40, 9-36, 40-1, 54-1, 33-23, 41-0. Group ‘B’: Rovin D’Souza (Mah) bt R Santosh (Kar) 44-25, 42-35, 38-5, 38-16. Group ‘C’: Balaji Reddy (Kar) bt Nihar Chavan (Mah) 46-13, 1-39, 32-39, 66-26, 27-36, 46-19, 48-1; Yagnesh Merai (Guj) bt Anand Raghuvanshi (Mah) 26-17, 40-29, 19-41, 37-36, 10-30, 18-45, 29-14. Group ‘D’: Faisal Khan (Rlys) bt Shivam Arora (Bih) 0-45 (45), 43-23, 46-25, 42-18, 38-30. Group ‘E’: Hasan Badami (Mah) bt Rishabh Pandya (PSPB) 38-15, 42-14, 42-0, 51-28.
Group ‘F’: Pushpinder Singh (Rlys) bt Aman Goyal (Har) 17-53, 21-34, 60-0, 23-47, 42-10, 32-29, 38-18. Group ‘I’: Mahesh Jagdale (Mah) bt Vijay Goel (Del) 30-14, 35-9, 5-40, 47-10, 26-36, 60-20; Neeraj Kumar (Rlys) bt Mukund Bharadia (Mah) 36-5, 37-36, 38-9, 46-26. Group ‘J’: Abhimanyu Gandhi (Guj) bt Chandresh Shah (Mah) 40 (40)-0, 41-18, 25-15, 69 (62)-0; IH Manudev (Kar) bt Mundir Sherazi (Kar) 33-43, 5-46, 47-12, 0-74 (70), 39-15, 46-1, 42-19. Group ‘K’: A Arvind (AP) bt Manjot Singh (Pnb) 2-61, 40-16, 35-11, 43-2, 35-6; Yogesh Sharma (Mah) bt Jaiveer Dhingra (Mah) 52-20, 40-10, 40-0, 32-34, 15-50, 46-14. Group ‘L’: Arun Agrawal (Mah) bt Kabil Badami (Mah) 42-10, 40-14, 20-37, 55-30, 46-8; Siddharth Parikh (Rlys) bt Viren Sharma (MP) 54-8, 43-15, 5-43, 27-34, 50-30, 22-34, 52-23. Group ‘M’: Manan Chandra (PSPB) bt Aditya Singh Rajawat (Kar) 41-8, 41-6, 50-0, 54-5; Rafath Habib (Rlys) bt IV Rajeev (AP) 51-8, 40-1, 0-52, 45-21, 39-0. Group ‘N’: Laxman Rawat (Del) bt R Girish (Rlys) 43-0, 35-37, 29-28, 18-34, 40-0, 4-47, 42-17; Nikhil Ootam (Mah) bt J Varun Kumar (TN) 49-6, 35-17, 36-8, 46-27.
Women: Group ‘B’: Meenal Thakur (Mah) bt Shilpa Shantappa (Kar) 53-22, 38-18, 39-7; Neena Praveen (TN) bt Varsha Sanjeev (Kar) 21-56, 9-39, 39-7, 38-17, 39-10. Group ‘D’: Anuja Thakur-Chandra (PSPB) bt Suniti Damani (WB) 39-42, 48-3, 40-20, 55-19.