Lucknow: Hardly nine years of age, young and talented Chandigarh cueist, Ranvir Duggal set the Lucknow Gomti river on fire, even as he gave a splendid display here at the Mini Stadium on the opening day of the neine-days State Bank Indian National Six Red Snooker Championship being organized by the Lucknow Cue Sports Association under the auspices of the UP Billiards & Snooker Association and the Billiards & Snooker Federation Of India on Tuesday evening.
The St. Stephens Class 3 student lost, but only just, as the Junior Snooker National champion, Malkeet Singh, the local hero, eventually won the exciting match by four frames to two by 40-15,17-44, 27-37, 49-18,39-08 and 44-00 points to record his second straight victory in the qualifying rounds of the double elimination event. Malkeet had earlier defeated Delhi player Gurdit Singh after a brief struggle to win by 43-12,51-01, 19-34, 37-34,46-53 and 52-11 points.
Another Uttar Pradesh player, Imran Khan staging a fine comeback after a gap of almost 6 years from the national circuit to beat the fancied Mizoram player, Lalrina Renthlei by four frames to one at 10-56, 34-12, 47-01, 52-15 and 36-31 points. However, the other Mizo player, Lalsingzela made amends by winning two matches on the trot beating Taran Agarwal of Uttar Pradesh and Rohan Sakalkar of Maharashtra.
Local player Amit Gupta was bang on target while accounting for Maharashtra's Anand Raghuvanshi winning by 51-25, 38-07, 31-30 and 42-22 points in a match which was closer than the scores suggest.
Dhvaj Haria of Gujarat was right on cue on this day, chalking up two fine victories. He first beat Ritesh Tiwari of Uttar Pradesh by 48-08, 55-15, 33-08 and 60- 08 points and then followed it, by putting out Punjab's Gursimar Singh also a win in straight frames at 42-01, 54-27, 61-09 and 46-11 points.
Veteran cueist, Kan Kan Shamsi of Lucknow began his campaign on a positive note by downing Delhi's Amir Khan by 01-47, 40-18, 31-16, 45-16 and 38-14 points.
Earlier the prestigious Phata Phat version of Indian National Snooker got under way with the inauguration done by Sudhir Dubey, the Chief General Manager of State Bank Of India and General Manager of Indian Oil, UP Singh.
Also present on the occasion were, Kush bhargava, Vice President, Billiards & Snooker Federation Of India and President of UP Billiards & Snooker Association, the honorary secretary of which, Tanuj Kohli was there to welcome the Guests.
In other matches played on Tuesday:-
Himanshu Jain of Andhra beat Kamlesh Balve of Madhya Pradesh by 4-2 frames.
Sumesh turki of Jammu & Kashmir beat Muneer Hussain of Uttar Pradesh by 4-1 frames.
Gurimar Singh of Punjab beat Rohit Raj Saxena of Uttar Pradesh by 4-3 frames.
Musa Ahmad of UP beat Rahul Singh of UP by 4-3 frames.
Kunal Kotekar of Delhi beat Quasim Zaidi of UP by 4-0 frames.
Aakash Mangal of UP beat Deepak Thakur of Delhi by 4-1 frames.
Chandan Agarwal of UP beat S Sridhar of AP by 4-2 frames.
Vipin Sethi Of Delhi beat Aditya Garg Of Delhi by 4-0 frames.
Sameer Bhalla of Haryana beat Puneet Tulsian by 4-1 frames.
Anmoldeep Singh of Punjab beat Gaurav Srivastava of UP by 4-1 frames.
Manish of UP beat Saurabh of UP by 4-3 frames.
Digvijay Kadian of Haryana beat Paritosh Pandey of UP by 4-2 frames.
Polkit Sharma of UP beat Manish Chudurusia of MP by 4-2 frames.
Abhinav Garg of UP Beat Amit of chandigarh by 4-1 frames.
Hemant singh thakur of AP beat Tanurag of chandigarh by 4-3 frames.
Dhruv Verma of Punjab beat Mehrzad of Gujarat by 4-0 frames.
Hardik Bhatt of Punjab beat Vinayak Agarwal of UP by 4-3 frames.
Himanshu Ronkali of J& K beat Saket Saurabh of Bihar by 4-2 frames.
Sahil Nayyar of Haryana beat Krishna reddy of AP by 4-2 frames.
Rohit Saxena of UP beat his state mate Ritesh Tiwari by 4-0 frames.