Ketan Chawla wins opener at Asian Snooker Championships

India’s Ketan Chawla began his Asian Snooker Championships campaign with a 4-2 win over Qatar’s Mohanna Alobaidli in Doha. Laxman Rawat, however, lost a close 3-4 contest to Iran’s Shahin Sabzi in Group J

Hyderabad: Promising Ketan Chawla of India began his campaign with a gritty 4-2 win over homeboy Mohanna Alobaidli in his opening Group B match at the Asian Snooker Championships in Doha on Saturday.

The 33-year-old from Indore, coming off a third-place finish at the Nationals recently, raced to a quick 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven-frame match with meaningful breaks. Chawla could have wrapped it up in straight frames but lost the fourth on the black.

---

The Qatari then came up with a fine break of 61 to reduce the margin. But before much damage could be done, Chawla lifted his game to close out the match in the sixth frame. The Indian next takes on former champion Amir Sarkhosh of Iran.

Elsewhere, India’s Laxman Rawat, a former IBSF World 6-red snooker champion, went down 3-4 to Iran’s Shahin Sabzi in Group J. After splitting the first four frames, Rawat took the crucial fifth to go up 3-2. Unfortunately, he failed to build on the gains as the Iranian came back strongly to take the next two frames for a hard-fought victory.

Results:
Group B: Ketan Chawla (Ind) bt Mohanna Alobaidli (Qat) 4-2 (61-29, 73-58, 56-35, 58-59, 37-89 (61), 64-24).
Group J: Shahin Sabzi (Irn) bt Laxman Rawat (Ind) 4-3 (74-38, 44-64, 79 (67)-45, 34-45, 37-61, 74-8, 75-18).