Bhandari, Sanchis score close wins

Juhu Vile Parle Gymkhana cueist Dhairya Bhandari rallied from the brink to scrape past Matunga Gymkhana’s Dhaval Kenia 4-3 in a best-of-7 frame third round match of the Matunga Gymkhana 6-Red Open Snooker Tournament 2018, sponsored and hosted by Matunga Gymkhana, under the auspices of BSAM, and played at the gymkhana’s billiards hall.

Home contender Kenia started on a promising note and did well to pocket the opening three frames to take a 3-0 and within striking distance of notching up a victory. However, Bhandari showed plenty of resilience and excellent fighting spirit as he came into his own and started to pot with consistent regularity, which helped turn things around. After winning the fourth and fifth frames quite comfortably, he thereafter upped the ante as he was in full flow and produced breaks of 36 and 28 in the sixth and seventh frames to snatch a satisfying 15-40, 35-42, 24-37, 44-19, 38-6, 40-0 and 39-1 victory to seal his berth in the fourth round.

Pune’s Arantxa Sanchis managed to overcome Ish Bawa of NSCI coasting to a 4-2 (17-30, 41-18, 7-45, 34-23, 37-16, 54-29) win in another third round match.

Matunga Gymkhana players Aditya Agrawal and Ankit Thakkar scored contrasting wins to advance to the fourth round. Aditya had quite a fight on hand before he managed to defeat Adit Raja (JVPG) 4-2 (50-6, 39-0, 21-34, 39(34)-16, 35-49, 48-9), while Ankit with two useful runs of 22 in successive frames (third and fourth) powered his way past Kushit Shah (Bhiwandi) posting a 4-0 (53-44, 44-22, 53(22)-16, 41(22)-23) victory.