Mehta stuns Yasin, Faisal matches on

Khar Gymkhana’s heavyweights Yasin Merchant and Faisal Khan, both playing with scratch handicaps, encountered mixed fortunes from their respective third round matches of the Khar Gymkhana Open Handicap Snooker Tournament 2018, at the Khar Gymkhana billiards room.

Former two-time Asian snooker champion Yasin Merchant was unable to hit the big ones and could not cope with NSCI cueist Anant Mehta’s handicap of +45 and went down in straight frames 0-3. Mehta playing against the fancied Merchant was all poised and composed as he potted steadily to carve out an 88-64, 85-76 and 88-51 frame scores victory.

Faisal Khan dropped the first frame but made a strong reply by taking the next three frames to tame Pune’s Tanmay Raghuwanshi (+45) 3-1 (54-91, 97-75, 113-61 and 101-54).

Meanwhile, Elphinstone CC’s Anurag Bagri (+30) showed great resilience and solid fighting qualities as he came from behind to get past Thane’s Swaroop Pillai (+45) by a tight 3-2 margin. Bagri lost the first two frames, but bounced back by constructing a 54 break to win the third and then maintained the winning momentum to win the next two and snatch a deserving 95-112, 91-101, 97-91, 110-55 and 102-77 win to advance to the fourth round.

Aditya Agrawal (+20) also of ECC had quite a struggle before getting the better of Dadar Club’s Bhushan Shahade (+45) 3-2 (108-84, 54-95, 96-74, 69-87, 95-54) in another third round encounter.