Raghuvanshi and Kotwani breeze into pre-quarters

P.J. Hindu Gymkhana cueists Anand Raghuvanshi and Hitesh Kotwani, both had things much their own way and breezed into the pre-quarter-final round of the Khar Gymkhana Open Handicap Snooker Tournament 2018, and played at the Khar Gymkhana billiards room.

Anand (+20 handicap) showed excellent touch and managed to edge past Elphinstone Cricket Club’s Aditya Agrawal (+20) in a fourth-round match. Potting steadily Anand did well to construct a break of 61 in the second frame as he raced to a 71-56, 86-46 and 78-50 win.

Hitesh (+30) produced quite a consistent performance to outshine Thane’s Pratik Thakkar (+40) in another fourth-round encounter. Hitesh started impressively with two neat breaks of 34 and 31 in the first frame and then was in complete control and charged to a 115-47, 90-70 and 90-53 victory to march ahead.

In another round-4 tie, Otters Club player Abhimanyu Gandhi (+10) also had an easy outing as he easily defeated Dadar Club’s Ameya Sankhala (+45) 3-0 (89-47, 96-62, 99-67).

Meanwhile, billiards markers Mahadev Bhogle of JVPG and Ajinkya Yelve of NSCI registered contrasting wins to also progress to the last 16 round.

Mahadev Bhogle (+35) enjoyed a good roll of the balls and posted a facile 3-0 win against Chiplun’s Siddhesh Mulay (+45) with the frame scores reading 91-56, 118-53 and 106-87 in his favour.

In contrast, Yelve displayed solid fighting qualities to overcome CCI’s Shabaz Khan (+15) 3-2 (82-81, 90-97, 79(30)-87(32,31), 73-30, 79-30).