Shivdasani advances

MUMBAI, May 13: Altaf Shivdasani shot past Amol Altekar, scoring a 3-2 win in the third round of the Garware Club House Snooker and Billiard...

MUMBAI, May 13: Altaf Shivdasani shot past Amol Altekar, scoring a 3-2 win in the third round of the Garware Club House Snooker and Billiards tournament at the Garware Club House today.

The first frame was a tough one with both players matching upto each other but the younger Shivdasani managing to take the lead 49-38. Not to be left behind, Altekar made a strong effort to level scores, winning the second frame comfortably 34-69.

Now it was the turn of Altekar to take the lead as he took the third frame. Towards the end of the frame Altekar was a point ahead of Shivdasani with the scores reading 45-44. With one red and the black ball remaining, Shivadasani was unlucky when the red just stopped at the edge of the corner cup off a rebound. Altekar, a player of the host Garware Club made no mistake in cupping it and then taking the black to win the frame 53-44.

But just as the match seemed to slip from his hands, Shivdasani came back strongly. He showed his true mettle under pressure winning the the nexttwo frames with huge margins of 71-31 and 73-38 and march into the next round.Top seed and former National Champion Siddharth Rao had a comfortable third round outing against NK Hemdev. He played in style even firing breaks of 44, 48 and 56 in each successive frame. The final scores read 68-14, 73-33, 95-14 in Rao8217;s favour.

RESULTS third round

Snooker Seniors: Altaf Shivdasani bt Amol Altekar 3-2 49-38, 34-69, 44-53, 71-31, 73-38; Felix Francis 3-0 73-35, 65-33, 55-6; Siddharth Rao bt NK Hemdev 3-0 68-14, 73-33, 95-14; Kamal Tulshan bt Mazhar Furniturewala 78-26, 53-54, 61-21, 61-32; Curl Karkaria lost to Anuj Uppal 3-1 64-32, 34-67, 14-78, 1-73; Joe Thomas lost to Rupesh Shah 3-0 32-61, 22-66, 28-63; J Dawar bt Sunil Ghadge 3-1 74-37, 73-20, 73-13; Varun Taneja walk/over V Subramaniam; Rakesh Trivedi bt Razak Hemani 3-0 First frame awarded to Trivedi as Hemani arrived late, 61-16, 53-33; Jeetendra Vashani lost to N Vithalani 16-66, 7-55, 34-42; I Mirza lost to D Luthra 3-173-11, 17-64, 27-54, 24-57; Manan Panchal bt Navin Talreja 3-0 62-36, 76-39, 67-57.

Billiards Seniors: K Khandelwal lost to SB Pandia 358-515; HS Neetunta lost to F Bhagwan 339-699 Breaks of 52, 50; MC Manoj w/o Gautam Khawani ; Siddharth Rao bt Cyrus Mistry 614-387.

Juniors second round: A Shah bt SS Parekh 207-162; G Goenka lost to Vishal talreja 130-173; Devang Shah bt Manan Chandra 267-186; Omar Balsara bt Andrew Dyer 294-175; S Anand bt A Joshi 267-159.