Nahar Group-MIG All India Invitational Snooker Championship 2009

MIG Cricket Club

Bandra - Mumbai - Maharashtra

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11 January 2009 @ Mumbai (India)

Aditya Mehta breaks major title jinx with Nahar-MIG title

Chess maestro DV Prasad was here at the MIG watching the final of the Rs.3.10 Lakh Nahar-MIG All India Invitational Snooker Championship. The reason: Aditya Mehta his Indian Oil colleague was playing and Prasad was wanting to know what the game is all about as he is the sports officer of the IOC handling all sports. And Aditya gave Prasad plenty to cheer winning the major title that had eluded him all along. His best chance was here because the top guns were were all sidelined except India No 4 Brijesh Damani, his opponent in the final.

On form it should have been a cakewalk for Aditya who battles the world's best at professional level in the qualifiers in the UK and is the only Indian pro on the circuit and has the highest break of 140. But the pressure of the elusive first title told on the Indian Oil player and he didn't play his characteristic fluent game giving Damani chance to score and snooker him.

|Aditya was 3-0 up and it looked like the final would get over in a trice. But Damani fought back in the fourth winning it. The fifth should have been Damani's also for he showed some brilliance with a doubled red, then a snooker behind the black that had the maestro in the stands, Yasin Merchant, applauding loudly and again potting a long red when seemingly snookered. Damani next took a jinxed blue and was leading 55-48 when he missed in easy pink as his hands trembled under pressure. That was just the toehold Aditya needed. He won the frame and after the interval claimed the next two putting the icing on the cake with an unfinished 108 in the seventh frame which happened to be the only hundred of the entire tournament.

A relieved Aditya said: "The fifth frame was crucial. Had Brijesh won then I may have had some difficulty. But that win got my confidence back. Again in the fifth I should have gone on for a bigger score but it all came right in the final frame."

The win and the Rs. One Lakh prize was a consolation for Aditya who was knocked out at the last eight stage of the Indore Nationals when he had to play Pankaj Advani.

Damani had stopped the dream run of Karnataka lad MS Arun beating him 5-3 in the morning semis. Damani led 4-0 before Arun reeled off three frames in a row. But in the must-win eighth frame, Arun did not show the sharpness of the earlier frames and Damani was through. Aditya Mehta beat Alok Kumar 5-1 in the other semifinal.