Playing his opening tie, Rafath Habib of Railways kicked off his campaign with a thrilling 3-2 win over Andhra Pradesh's Himanshu Jain after rallying from 0-2 in the CCI Classic Billiards & Snooker Tournament today.
Tamil Nadu-based Habib, who dropped the second frame on the black, made a late recovery to win three frames in a row. He later beat former Maharashtra junior champion Rovin D'Souza 3-1 and Raj Khandwala of CCI 3-0 in Group D.
Playing his opening tie in Group B, Mumbai's Manav Panchal eked out a 3-2 win over Malkeet Singh of CCI in the best-of-five frames round robin contest.
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Panchal dropped the first frame and trailed again after losing the third on the black, before snatching the decider in another black ball finish. Panchal went on to beat Nitesh Madan of Railways 3-1, before going down to Asian 6-Red champion and India number 7 Laxman Rawat 0-3.
Results:
Group A: I H Manudev (Ktk) bt Sourav Kothari (PSPB) 3-1; Sourav Kothari bt Jaiveer Dhingra (PSPB) 3-1.
Group B: Manan Chandra (PSPB) bt Malkeet Singh (CCI) 3-1; Manav Panchal (Mah) bt Malkeet Singh 3-2; Laxman Rawat (PSPB) bt Manav Panchal 3-0; Manav Panchal bt Nitesh Madan (Rlys) 3-1.
Group C: Pushpender Singh (Rlys) bt Rupesh Shah (PSPB) 3-0; Pushpender Singh bt Sundeep Gulati (Del) 3-0; Sundeep Gulati bt Nishant Dossa (CCI) 3-0.
Group D: Arvind Kumar (Rlys) bt Raj Khandwala (CCI) 3-2; Rovin D'Souza (Mah) bt Arvind Kumar 3-1; Rafath Habib (Rlys) bt Himanshu Jain (AP) 3-2; Rafath Habib bt Rovin D'Souza 3-1; Faisal Khan (Rlys) bt Raj Khandwala 3-0; Rafath Habib bt Raj Khandwala 3-0.
