Badami, Jain book final berths in snooker

Mumbai cueists Hasan Badami and Himanshu Jain both clinched berths in the final round of the Indian Open snooker qualifying tournament to be held in Pune next week, here Saturday.

Badami and Jain won their respective quarter-final ties in the fourth round of the qualifying tournament at the Cricket Club of India (CCI) billiards hall.

Badami prevailed over Rahul Sachdev, also from Mumbai, by a 4-2 margin with the frame scores reading 63-45, 74-04, 62-64, 08-54, 55-19, 64-21.

The lanky Badami started off positively by winning the first frame and then produced a superb unfinished break of 74 to win the second. But the left-handed Sachdev fought back and came up with two half century efforts of 51 and 53 to take the third and fourth frames to level the scores at 2-all. Badami once again found his touch and won the next two frames to close the match.

On the side table, Jain dashed the hopes of Pune's Yogesh Sharma, romping to a 4-1 win. Jain dropped a tight opening frame but bounced back nicely as he went on to win the subsequent four to complete a 55-57, 68-27, 61-32, 58-14, 64-27 victory.

Manish Jain of West Bengal and Siddharth Parikh of Railways, both enjoyed easy wins to also book their place in the final qualifying tournament. Jain defeated Uttar Pradesh's Akshay Kumar 4-0 while Parikh blanked another UP player Vipin Premi by an identical 4-0 scoreline.

All the four qualifiers along with the 12 other players who had qualified from the other three rounds held earlier in Delhi, Chennai and Indore will compete with the top-8 ranked players in the country, based on the last National Championship.

The Pune event will decide the six Indian wildcards for the Indian Open which will be held here March 10-14.

Quarter-final results: Hasan Badami beat Rahul Sachdev 4-2 (63-45, 74(74 unfinished)-04, 62-64(51), 08-54(53), 55-19, 64-21); Siddharth Parikh beat Vipin Premi (UP) 4-0 (63-28, 63-07, 67-42, 68-24); Manish Jain (West Bengal) beat Akshay Kumar (UP) 4-0 (70-48, 77-61, 68-21, 84-42); Himanshu Jain beat Yogesh Sharma (Pune) 4-1 (55-57, 68-27, 61-32, 58-14, 64-27).