Being played under the joint auspices of the Yeshwant Club and the Madhya Pradesh Billiards & Snooker Association under the aegis of the Billiards & Snooker Federation Of India exciting snooker matches were witnessed in the Seniors Qualifying section of the championship with the Delhi cueists for once shining in their little conquests of the second round of the competition which requires four wins to qualify for the Seniors snooker main draw.

Shrenik Jain of Delhi had to strain hard to get the better of the host cueist, Aditya in five fully extended frames of the best of five second round snooker match of the Seniors Qualifying round  coming back from a 1-2 deficit to oust Aditya by 57-39, 35-44, 28-61, 69-34 and 50-37 in a very close contest which had both the players gasping for the winning breath as Shrenik nosed ahead to win.

Puneet Kaushik of Delhi did one better as he edged out Vikas Dhamija of Uttar Pradesh in five frames on the decisive black ball after being down by 36-53 points down with the brown, blue, pink and black balls left on the billiards table. Puneet won the first two frames only to find Dhamija staging a brilliant rally to take the third and fourth frames to restore parity. Yet it was Puneet who triumphed eventually to move into the next round with a 60-54, 58-45, 52-77, 30-96 and 58-53 points in a virtual cliff-hanger.

Pushpinder Singh the young sikh lad from Delhi gave a superb performance to drub Rahul Narang in straight three frames without much bother. Such was his assertive play that Narang could only put up a semblance of a fight in the second frame before executing the kill with a precision exhibition of potting and ball positioning to serve a warning to his next opponent winning the match by 79-10, 65-54 and 57-10 points to round off with a degree of comfort.

Anuj Bhargava of Uttar Pradesh, a pupil of the National coach, Sunder Jairaj was another victor to impress as he demolished Bhushan Shahade of Maharashtra in straight three frames by 74-16, 59-15 and 58-03 points. Such was the domination of Anuj that normally a good club level player from Dadar Club was made to look very pedestrian. Bhushan fumbled often on “ sitter “ positions and Anuj capitalized.

In another nail – biting five frames thriller, V. Vijay Kumar of the Railways snatched victory from under the grasp of Punjab’s, Jagjit Singh as he cleared the colourballs from brown to black in the deciding fifth frame with the score-line reading 2-2. It was Jagjit who impressed initially only to find Vijay Kumar come back in the reckoning by winning the second and third for a 2-1 lead. Jagjit fought back from the brink to win the close fourth frame to restore parity at 2-2 but faltered on the brown at the colours stage in the decider to afford a chance to Vijay Kumar who promptly did the needful with a fine 22 clearance break to win the frame and match by 37-66, 66-06, 70-37, 70-72 and 41-37 points.

Nitin Kaithwas of the hosts , Madhya Pradesh was also another creditable winner of the day with a fine three frames to two victory over David Bose of West Bengal by 73-45, 52-54, 49-58, 59-10 and 62-15 points in yet another tie which went the full distance. In fact it was David who should have been in the driver’s seat after having taken a vital 2-1 lead when pocketing the crucial third frame but Nitin who plays snooker in a cool and calculated manner rallied with determination to wrest the fourth frame to make it 2-2. In the fifth and final frame, Nitin was just too good for David as he plotted his rival’s downfall with some intelligent safety play mixing it with sound potting to win.

Deepak Rupani of Andhra Pradesh won a five frame battle with V. Arun Kumar of Tamil Nadu by 49-56, 28-67, 50-29, 82-39 and a black ball decider at 54-46 in the last frame. Arun Kumar had only to blame when losing his focus after a lead of 2-0.  Deepak’s teammate, Someshwar Rao also had to put his best foot forward before he could down ME Anand of Karnataka by 67-69, 57-09, 59-03, 16-52 and 65-02 points winning the final frame with a flourish.

Karnataka’s also however had some success on this day as the promising cueist, Mundir Sherazi posted a three frames to one victory over V. Rakesh of the hosts by 57-20, 64-27, 39-66 and 80-28 points to move into the next round. Joining him was his compatriot  M S Arun who had to struggle to override the Railways cueist, Wasim Ahmad by 58-82, 63-14, 39-49, 84-56 and 50-16 points.