Surprising wins for Manan, Balsara

Manan, who seems to have inherited his adventurous style from his father, Tarun Chandra, was tentative in the first frame. Habib, who made breaks of 101 and 87 yesterday began with began with 45 and took the first frame.

Manan failed to make any big breaks but came up with handy 30s to keep Habib at bay. Manan’s best came in the third, when he wastrailing by 30 and only the colours (total of 27) were left on the table. He not only successfully played for a snooker once, but twice and got a free ball with the second. The Delhi made good all that walked off with the frame and was never in trouble after that.

Southpaw Balsara, an exciting and fast player who does not mind taking risks, won the first two frames against two-times former national champion B V S Murthy. But then he lapsed in concentration, missing simple pots and Murthy picked up to level the match score at 2-2. Balsara came into his own in the next two and the sixth in particular. Under tension, needing to pot the pink he made a difficult one to round off with the match.

Thukral won his fourth match, beating Agrawal, who did not seem to too happy at being made to play on a different table than what was mentioned in the draw. But with a delayed schedule staring at him, chief referee C Kapur was within his rights to do so. Agrawal after losing the first three frames conceded in the fourthwhile trailing by 16 points. Thukral’s qualification for pre-quarters still depends on the match between Dharmender Lilly and Agrawal. Lilly has four wins and a frame difference of 13, while Agrawal has three wins and a frame difference of seven. Thukral also has four wins and a frame difference of 10. So Agrawal must beat Lilly 4-0 to qualify.