NEW DELHI, Jan 13
Tamil Nadu’s Vijay Nichani stole the thunder with a scintillating total clearance break of 141 points in the second frame en route to a 4-0 (91-40, 141-0, 75-24, and 50-10) whitewash of Inder Mundra in a qualifying draw first round match of the ‘NSCI Baulkline 3.0’ All India Snooker Open 2024, on Thursday.
The modest TN cueist Nichani showed exquisite touch and with perfect shot selection accumulated the points during the magnificent effort. After Mundra’s opening shot, Nichani on his first visit sunk a long red and then gradually got into good positions to polish the balls off the table, to register the tournament’s highest break. This break would certainly be a challenge for big guns, Pankaj Advani, Sourav Kothari, Aditya Mehta and Ishpreet Singh Chadha, who is playing in the professional circuit, to try and surpass the mark. However, Vijay’s form seemed to have deserted him when he took on Nitish Taygi in a second round encounter. He started shakily and lost the first frame, but bounced back to win four successive frames, including a tight fifth frame to clinch a 4-1 (61-77, 75-13, 60-32, 53-22, and 55-53) victory and to qualify for the main draw.
Seasoned billiards pro, Dhvaji Haria joined Nichani in the second phase of the tournament winning both his matches. In the first round, the lanky left-handed Haria constructed a break of 89 and went on to tame Dipesh Chawani 4-0 (71-34, 89-4, 66-20, 57-25). He later, had to bring out his best to smother spirited fight frame Aditya Shandilya snatching a tense 4-3 (24-56, 69-13, 14-77, 109-5, 74-12, 13-77, and 66-35) victory in the second round match. Sparsh Pherwani was in superb form and compiled three half-century breaks of 55, 57 and 67 as he stormed past Ishan Nagar by a convincing 4-0 (76-2, 74-5, 77-30, and 87-0) victory to seal his place in the main draw.
