Giant killer Kamal Chawla and second seed Aditya Mehta registered easy wins to reach the seme-finals of the Rs 12.25 lakh prize-money CCI All India Open Snooker Championship 2018 on Saturday.
Chawla, who upset top seed Pankaj Advani in the earlier round, defeated Haryana’s Divya Sharma 5-1 margin while Mehta hammered Maharashtra’s Shabaz Khan by a similar margin.
The Railway cueist played confidently and with good control as he pounced on the chances that came his way to clinch the win. After the opening two frames were shared, Chawla came up with notable breaks of 58 and 86 in the fourth and fifth frames respectively to charge towards a 71-31, 56-69, 75-37, 79-6, 87-26 and 83-56 victory.
Chawla will now face Brijesh Damani of PSPB in the semi-final, Damani prevailed over Sundeep Gulati of Delhi 5-2 in another quarter-final tie.
Meanwhile, PSPB cueists Sourav Kothari and Manan Chandra, were engaged in a gruelling battle before the former managed to scrape through 5-4 in a long drawn quarter-final match, that lasted close to six hours.
Kothari will now take on Mehta for a spot in the final.
Results – quarter-finals: Kamal Chawla (Rlys) bt Divya Sharma (Har) 5-1 (71-31, 56-69, 75-37, 79(58)-6, 87(86)-26, 83-56); Aditya Mehta (PSPB) bt Shabaz Khan (Mah) 5-1 (69-8, 77-26, 94(94)-0, 94(68)-2, 39-62, 62-7); Brijesh Damani (PSPB) bt Sundeep Gulati (Del) 5-2 (68-57, 52-68, 52-45, 32-51, 68-19, 57(45)-34, 60(46)-16); Sourav Kothari (PSPB) bt Manan Chandra (PSPB) 5-4, 74-31, 30-48, 89-37, 4-77 (68), 83-50, 50-108, 55-56, 100(59)-15,79(64)-40).