Snooker nationals: Choudhury, Chadha upset top players

It was a day of upsets at the National 6-Red Snooker Championship as defending champion Varun Madan and last year's runner-up Rahul Sachdev lost their respective matches to Delhi's Monu Choudhury and Maharashtra's young cueist Ispreet Chadha at the Bengal Rowing Club.

Saturday also witnessed veteran cueist Rupesh Shah losing two back-to-back matches against Faisal Khan and Rafath Habib and he now is staring at a possible exit from the tournament.

India's only professional snooker player Aditya Mehta showed fluent form and defeated his rival Shakil Ahmed of West Bengal, winning 4-0 with ease with the frame scores reading 51-16, 33-21, 53-12 and 61-0.

"Aditya played with great focus and concentration since he does not usually play 6-Red but his fluency and class was unmatchable. His shots were admirable," said chief national coach Manoj Kothari.

Rupesh Shah, who now has his back to the wall, will play against Anand Raghuvanshi of Maharashtra which may be termed a dead rubber.

Shah started the day on a depressing note as he lost three consecutive frames at the hands of Faisal Khan in his first game of the day before making a comeback by winning the next two frames.

But Khan conquered the last frame to win the match. In the next match, Shah staged a strong comeback against Rafath Habib by winning the first two frames but then lost concentration.

The day also saw Sourav Kothari and Brijesh Damani winning their respective matches comprehensively over Bharath Sisodia (Madhya Pradesh) and Bengal's Aamir Hussain.