Not prepared to give up, Merchant produced a solid effort and without conceding a point won the sixth to force the decider.

Matunga Gymkhana’s seasoned cueist Arun Agrawal made a good positive start defeating Sanklap Mundhada of Vashi 4-2 in a best-of-7 frame second round match of the Matunga Gymkhana 6-Red Open Snooker Tournament 2018, sponsored and hosted by Matunga Gymkhana, under the auspices of BSAM and played at the gymkhana’s billiards hall.

Agrawal, who had a first round bye, got down to business immediately by rolling in a break of 35 in winning the first frame and then went on to pocket the second to open up a 2-0 lead. But, later he faced quite a challenge from Mundhada, who did well to bag the next two frames to draw level at 2-all. The experienced Agrawal quickly regained his composure and with some clever play, went on to win the subsequent two frames to complete a satisfying 37(35 break)-16, 46-34, 28-43, 10-41, 49-20 and 42-30 victory.

Meanwhile, in one of the most exciting second round matches, Abhishek Soparkar of Thane staved off the spirited challenge from Ejaz Merchant of Cue Schooling by snatching a tight 4-3 win. The Thane cueist easily won the opening frame to take an early lead before Merchant, who showed good fighting qualities, won the next two to gain the upper hand. But, Merchant was unable to continue the good work and lost the fourth and fifth frames to trail 2-3. Not prepared to give up, Merchant produced a solid effort and without conceding a point won the sixth to force the decider. However, he was unable to raise the level of his game and narrowly lost the seventh as Soparkar snatched a 40-13, 21-31, 21-32, 37-15, 36-23, 0-40 and 30-21 success.

Veer Singh Nagi of Juhu Vile Parle Gymkhana had things much under control and raced to a facile 4-0 win against Rushit Dani of Jolly Gymkhana.