The Rs 3.1 lakh All India invitation snooker tournament couldnt have had a better start with two stars,Yasin Merchant and Aditya Mehta,sparkling in their first round wins and Tamil Nadus MS Arun upsetting India No. 3 Sourav Kothari in the league games. Yasin had three breaks of over 60 and Aditya had a 63 in his 4-3 win over R Girish of Karnataka. The opener was full of thrills. In the decider,Kothari needed just the pink but missed and Arun got the last two balls to throw Group B,which has Alok Kumar and Rishab Pandya,wide open. Arun later beat Rishab Pandya 4-2. Maharashtra state champ Nikhil Ootam has replaced Geet Sethi in the tournament and is in Group C along with Aditya Mehta,Brijesh Damani and R Girish. Groupings Group A: Manan Chandra,Yasin Merchant,Faisal Khan,Shravan Mohta. Group B: Sourav Kothari,Alok Kumar,Rishab Pandya,MS Arun. Group C: Brijesh Damani,Aditya Mehta,Nikhil Ootam,R Girish.Group D: Kamal Chawla,Shahbaaz Khan,Rupesh Shah,Devendra Joshi. ResultsGroup A: Yasin Merchant bt Shravan Mohta 4-0 (80-21,75 (61)-10,97 (61)-22,92 (66)-20.Group B: MS Arun bt Sourav Kothari 4-3 (78-0,60-36,55-70,55-65,49-53,55-53,52-47; MS Arun bt Rishab Pandya 4-2 (61-1,79-3,82-36,23-54,25-66,59-7).Group C: Aditya Mehta bt R Girish 4-3 (88-6,49-51,73-36,61-46,46-59,41-59,61-36).Brijesh Damani bt R Girish 4-2 (82-25,58-33,33-60,64-27,1-81,69-29.)Group D: Rupesh Shah bt Kamal Chawla 4-1 (41-80,66-53,77-38,59-52,61-16).
