Lucknow: Do not be misled by his balding countenance, he is a compact snooker player, especially in the shorter format.
Local cueist, Sachin Pandey gave a sterling display of his capability on the snooker table even as he set up a qualifying final match with Neeraj Kumar of Bihar for the main stage of the State Bank Indian National Six Red Snooker Championship being played here at the Vijayant Khand, Gomti Nagar situated Mini stadium on Friday afternoon.
Sachin beat his city mate, Atit Agarwal in five frames by 44-20, 09-37,29-20,32-24 and 29-22 in a close contest of the 9 days competition powered by Indian Oil Corporation.
In other match Manjot Singh of Punjab beat Harpreet Singh of Haryana by 4-1.
Tall Orissa player, Subrata Das entered the main draw of the event organized by the Lucknow Cue Sports Association, under the auspices of UPBSA, and the Billiards & Snooker Federation Of India as he beat local hope Mandeep Singh in straight frames by 37-26,47-08,59-00 and 36-04 points .
Subrat earlier had defeated Kirubanand of AP by 45-20,38-17,36-35 and 49-39 in a straight frames win.
Joining Subrat in the main round was Deepinder Singh ( Deepa de Cueboy ) of Punjab with an exhilarating exhibition of sound potting to oust Puneet Kaushik of Haryana by 30-33, 35-22,39-24,30-44, 39-30 and 37-17 points in an exciting match.
Justifying his enormous talent on the " green baize ", Pushpinder Singh of Uttarakhand was another noteworthy winner as he outclassed local boy, Surya Dev Singh in five frames at 44-21,27-47,33-28,44-24 and 35-16 points to also make the main round.
Pushpinder also beat Dharmesh Manik of MP by 28-10,38-00,41-23,25-35 and 52-08 in an earlier match.
Aayush Kumar of Punjab was not far behind as he too made the main round when he beat Rahul Sachdeva of Maharashtra in 6 frames at 47-08, 31-01,19-49,41-02,04-69 and 43-21 points, playing very positively along with a display of steady nerves.
Altamash Saifi of Delhi was another entrant into the main rounds as he first beat Aakash Srivastava of UP by 47-22,34-04,38-11 and 35-10 points and then accounted for Mrungkan Shah of Gujarat by 45-00,40-16,20-33,49-10 and 41-00 points to qualify.
Another Delhi lad Ashmit Singh also entered the main draw with a fine 4-3 closely contested victory over Sumit Talwar of Chandigarh. Ashmit came out on top with a 26-15,26-32,18-42,08-26,35-11,37-27 and 39-28 points win. The match was evenly poised at 3-3 frames before Ashmit took the decisive black to wriggle out unscathed. Earlier Ashmit had defeated Sagar Katwani of MP by 34-42,43-07,18-31,39-07,45-08,30-40 and 50-08 points.
Manish Jain of West Bengal too made it to the main rounds with a facile victory over Nilesh Nagpal of UP in 5 frames winning the tie easily at 38-07,42-11, 43-21, 07-50 and 37-03 points.
Meanwhile, the Bengal Tiger of snooker, Sourav Kothari began his campaign in right earnest with a straight frames victory over Anil Gautam of UP. Sourav won the match with consummate ease by 55-10, 30-21, 45-07 and 55-01 points.
In other matches of the day:-
Vipin Premi of UP beat Ankur Gupta of UP by 4-0 frames; Anupam Jha of Bihar beat Vikas Dhamija of UP; Kirubanand of AP beat Richard Rapol of AP by 4-0 frames; Vijay Goel of DElhi beat Rohit Rajan of UP by 4-0 frames; Harpreet Singh of Haryana beat Ankur Gupta of UP by 4-0 frames; Pulkit Thakural of Delhi beat Harshit Verma of UP by4-2 frames; Siddarth Mehra of UP beat Shavez Khan of UP by 4-0 frames; Shubham Mehrotra of UP beat Hitesh Sethi of Delhi by 4-3 frames; Vipin Sethi of Delhi beat Rahul Singh of UP by 4-2 frames; Harshit Mehra of UP beat Vinay Mishra of UP by 4-0 frames;
Mruganka Shah of Gujarat beat Nikhil Singh of UP by 4-1 frames; Sumit Talwar of Chandigarh beat Sachin Saxena of UP by 4-0 frames; Lalrina Renthlie of Mizoram beat Himanshu Ronkali of Jammu and Kashmir by 4-0 frames; Fahad Kareem of UP beat Vaibhav Goel of haryana by 4-1 frames; Hitesh Sethi of Delhi beat Shresth Agarwal of UP by 4-1 frames; Vansh Panjwani of UP beat Gaurav Nathani of UP by 4-1 frames; Pawan Kumar of AP beat Rohit Ranjan of UP by 4-1 frames; Amit Gupta of UP beat Kunal kothekar of Orissa by 4-3 frames; Harish Gandhi of MP beat Chandan Gulati of UP by 4-0 frames; Siddarth Mehra of UP beat Ankur Gupta of UP by 4-3 frames; Rajat Khaneja of Chandigarh beat Neeraj Kumar of Bihar by 4-3 frames; Surya Dev Singh of UP beat Mark Menezes of UP by 4-1 frames; Sagar Kadwani of Up beat Shubham Mehrotra of UP by 4-2 frames; Sachin Pasndey of UP beat Asish Gupta of UP by 4-1 frames; Rajat Negi of Delhi beat Dharmesh Manik of MP by 4-1 frames; Vijay Goel of Delhi beat Vipin Premi of UP by 4-1 frames; Mark Menezes of UP beat Fahad Kareem of UP by 4-2 frames; Manjot Singh of Punjab beat Tigmanshu Singh of UP by 4-0 frames; Varun Kumar of TamilNadu beat Anubhav Shukla of UP by 4-0 frames; Anupam Jha of Bihar beat Harpreet Singh of Haryana by 4-3 frames.