Sachdev sizzles with brilliant 125 break

Mumbai-based cueists Siddharth Parikh and Aditya Agarwal won their fourth qualifying round matches in convincing fashion to advance to the main draw of the Rs 12.25 lakh prize-money CCI All India Open Snooker Championship 2018.

The articulate Parikh of Indian Railways played a tactical game. With a break of 69 in the second, he managed to edge out Paras Gupta of Uttar Pradesh snatching a 4-0 win in the best-of-seven frame encounter at the CCI’s Wilson Jones Billiards Room on Tuesday. On the side table, Agarwal of Matunga Gymkhana was cool and composed and with the help of two substantial runs of 40 in the first frame and 43 in the fifth, rode to a 4-1 win over Delhi’s Jaison Malhotra.

Meanwhile, Rahul Sachdev of Cue Schooling, stole the thunder with a neatly crafted 125 break as he went on to tame Telangana’s B.L. Dheeraj, winning in four frames, 3-1. After sharing the first two frames with his Telangana rival, the left-handed Sachdev got into cracking form in the third as he potted with superb accuracy to run up a brilliant break of 125. However, with only the last three colours remaining, he missed the blue and his effort fell short of the 130 qualifying mark for the highest break prize of Rs 25,000. He went on to pocket the fourth to clinch the match with the frame scores reading 68-20, 15-65, 125(125)-0 and 69-30.

The Railway player Parikh with some clever ploys and a steady break of 69 in the second, managed to out-duel the UP cueist, winning three of the frames narrowly to steal a 67-65, 81-40, 64-60, 72-63 win.

Meanwhile, Agarwal started confidently with a break of 40 in winning the first frame and he pocketed the next two to take a 3-0 lead. Malhotra showed signs of fighting back as he made 42 in winning the fourth before Agarwal came roaring back to win the fifth to complete a 76-22, 49-21, 45-19, 44-72, 75-15 win.

Akshay Kumar of Uttar Pradesh sent Laxman Rawat of PSPB crashing with a hard-earned come-from-behind 4-3 victory in another fourth round match. Rawat raced to a 2-0 lead but he was unable to carry on the winning run as Kumar went on to pocket the next three on the trot to forge ahead 3-2. The experienced Rawat managed to win the sixth to level scores and force the decider which Kumar won comfortably to clinch a 4-78, 34-83, 94-4, 58-48, 77-48, 2-71 and 54-26 victory and qualify for the main draw.