6-Red Snooker nationals: Madan upsets Mehta

Nitesh Madan of Railways Sports Promotion Board handed a shock 4-3 defeat to India's only professional Snooker player Aditya Mehta in the main draw of National 6-Red Snooker Championship at the Bengal Rowing Club here on Sunday.

The game started with Mehta winning the first frame quite comfortably with score reading 57-08 but thereafter completely lost his concentration as Madan clinched the next three frames with scores of 42-23, 34-33, 69-00.

Down by three frames to one, Mehta came back strongly and won the next two frames by 44-35, 34-00. With both the players winning three frames each, it was left to the decider, but Mehta lost his rhythm completely as the 23-year old Madan won the last frame comfortably by 47-0.

"It has been five years since I started playing the game and arguably this is my biggest and the best win of my career till date," Madan said after the match.

Earlier in the day, Mehta defeated A. Selva comfortably by 4-0.

Meanwhile, Sourav Kothari of PSPB won both of his games of the day against Benay Agarwal and Akram Khan (both WB) respectively. Brijesh Damani also had a good outing as he defeated Mohit Pal 4-1.

The women's qualifiers will start on Monday and will see Vidya Pillai who is currently third ranked in world Snooker rankings. The tournament will also see the likes of Amee Kamani, Bronze medalist in 2015 World Ladies Snooker along with Neena Pravin, Meenal Thakur, Arantxa Sanchis, Suniti Damani, Neeta Kothari and Doyel Dey.