Chandra tops Group B, makes pre-quarters

BANGALORE, FEB 17: Delhi's Manan Chandra topped Group B and qualfied for the pre-quarterfinals in the 66th Senior National Snooker Championship here on Thursday.

Eighteen-year-old Chandra displayed excellent skills to get past Sanjeev Gupta (J&K) 4-0 (88-17, 113-18, 94-08, 78-09).

The winner, after having snatched the first frame, came up with a brilliant 93 break in the second (113-18) to take 2-0 lead. He continued to dominate proceedings with breaks of 57 and 67 in the third and fourth frames respectively to win.

Earlier, Chandra won against Raj Jaswal (HP) 4-0 (62-20, 56-17, 64-21, 62-18).

In the initial rounds, Chandra shocked last year runner-up Sarang Shroff 4-0 and Md. Asim 4-1 to keep the slate clean with four wins.

Devendra Joshi (Mah) beat SK Jagtiani (Rly) 4-0 and finished behind Rupesh Shah (Guj) in Group D.

Meanwhile, in the junior snooker section, Rishab Thukrali and Harith Parikh will clash for the semi-final berth (league). Thurkal beat Raghav Baweja 3-0 (84-09; 55-40 and 110-0). He finished the final frame in style with a 110 break. Harith beat Akram Khan 3-0 (56-21, 49-38, 58-27).

The winner will top Group B and qualify for semi-final where it will be on league basis (best of seven frames)

Results: Rishab Thukral (Del) bt Raghav Baweja (Har) 3-0 (84-9, 55-44, 110-0), Harith Parikh (Guj) bt Akram Khan (WB) 3-0 (56-21, 49-38, 58-27), Amit Sharma (Del) bt Manan Nagpal (Raj) 3-2 (35-59, 52-53, 66-42, 59-43, 58-37), Ritesh Shah (Mah) bt Piyush Jain (Raj) 3-0 (62-23, 84-32, 74-1), Pankaj Advani (Kar) bt Kunal Shah (Ker) 3-0 (77-2, 60-26, 59-14), Vishal Bajaj (AP) bt Pritesh Singh (UP) 3-1 (65-52, 37-48, 64-37, 59-52)

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