Manan Chandra survives to qualify for Indian Open

Manan Chandra (extreme left)

Bangalore, Sep 4 (IANS) The talented Manan Chandra from Delhi survived a few close calls as he headed six qualifiers for the World Snooker Indian Open tournament here Wednesday.

Along with Chandra (PSPB), the other Indians to qualify for the main draw of the Indian Open to be held in New Delhi from October 14 to 18, were: Kamal Chawla (Railways), Shivam Arora (Bihar) and Sundeep Gulati (Delhi).

Later, Punjab’s Dharmender Lilly overcame former National champion Alok Kumar (PSPB) 4-2 and Faisal Khan (Railways) who defeated Himanshu Jain (Andhra) 4-3 in the play-offs following their loss in the quarter-finals to complete the list of six Indian qualifiers.

In the round of 16, Chandra came through 4-3 against Lucky Vatnani (Andhra) whose break of 137 clearance in the fourth frame highlighted the close match. Chandra went on to beat Faisal Khan 4-2 with a break of 50 in the sixth frame in the quarter-finals to confirm his progress to the main draw of the Indian Open.

Chawla made sure of his berth by knocking out Dharminder Lilly 4-2, while Arora put it across youngster and lucky lot qualifier Himanshu Jain 4-2 and Gulati edged out veteran Alok Kumar 4-2.

The results:

Quarter-finals (winners qualify for main draw): Manan Chandra (PSPB) bt Faisal Khan (Rly) 4-2; Shivam Arora (BH) bt Himanshu Jain (AP) 4-2; Sandeep Gulati (DEL) bt Alok Kumar (PSPB) 4-2; Kamal Chawla (Rly) bt Dharmender Lilly (PNB) 4-2. Play-off for two more qualifying spots: Lilly bt Alok Kumar 4-2; Khan bt Jain 4-3.

Pre-quarter-finals: Chandra bt Lucky Vatnani (AP) 4-3; Khan bt Manish Jain (WB) 4-2; Arora bt Varun Kumar (TN) 4-3; Jain bt Shahbaz Adil Khan (PSPB) 4-1; Alok Kumar bt Sourav Kothari (PSPB) 4-3; Gulati bt Vijay Nichani (TN) 4-0; Lilly bt Pushpender Singh (Rly) 4-2; Chawla bt Brijesh Damani (PSPB) 4-1.