ACBS Asian 6-Red Snooker Championship: Paras Gupta loses in final

Paras Gupta, who early continued his impressive run by scoring a lopsided 5-1 win over former IBSF World (15-red) champion Ali Al Obaidli of Qatar in the semifinals, couldn’t quite reproduce the heroics in the final.

Hyderabad: Seasoned Malaysian cueist Thor Chuan Leong ended giant-killer Paras Gupta’s fairytale run in the summit clash of the ACBS Asian 6-Red Snooker Championship in Colombo on Wednesday.

After both players came through their semifinals with upset wins in the morning, a lot of fireworks were expected in the evening final. But the 30-year-old Malaysian, a former IBSF World champion and Asian snooker in the traditional format, came out firing on all cylinders to score a comfortable 6-2 win over the doughty Indian.

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Gupta, who early continued his impressive run by scoring a lopsided 5-1 win over former IBSF World (15-red) champion Ali Al Obaidli of Qatar in the semifinals, couldn’t quite reproduce the heroics in the final.

That seemed to suit Leong – who had defeated three-time World champion (15-red) Muhammad Asif of Pakistan 5-2 in the other semifinal – fine as he jumped to a 2-0 lead with runs of 39 and 41.

The result: Final: Thor Chuan Leong (Mas) bt Paras Gupta (Ind) 6-2 (50 (39) -5, 44 (41) -2; 8-62 (35); 42-12, 47-40 (31), 1-51 (51), 36-24, 48 (41) -2).

Semifinals: Gupta bt Ali Al Obaidli (Qat) 5-1 (35-26, 67 (57) -0, 40 (40) -0, 11-49, 31-18, 43-9); Leong bt Muhammad Asif (Pak) 5-2 (39-5, 4-59 (35), 41-0, 62 (35) -0, 1-43 (35), 34 (33) -25, 78 (70) -0).