Paras Gupta stuns Chawla, cruises into Asian 6-Red semis

Paras Gupta defeated top-seed Kamal Chawla and blanked Sunny Wang 5-0 to enter the Asian 6-Red Snooker semifinals in Colombo, showcasing his growing stature in international cue sports

Hyderabad: Giant-killer Paras Gupta, who outplayed reigning IBSF World 6-Red Snooker champion and fellow Indian Kamal Chawla in the morning, scored a crushing 5-0 win over Sunny Wang later in the evening to storm into the semifinals of the ACBS Asian 6-Red Snooker Championship in Colombo on Tuesday.

In a quarterfinal that bordered on mediocrity, the 29-year-old Agra cueist played the big points well to get past the Singaporean, who had earlier shocked former champion Muhammad Sajjad of Pakistan 5-0.

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After taking the re-spotted black in the first frame, Gupta lacked his usual fluency. Although he went up 2-0 with a run of 28 in the second, he was not in control of the proceedings. Fortunately for him, Wang failed to capitalise on the chances that came his way and let Gupta off the hook.

Gupta took the scrappy third and fourth frames to go up 4-0. It was only in the final frame that the Indian rediscovered his touch, making a silken-smooth break of 59 to close out the match. In the semifinals, he takes on the winner of the match between Habib Sabah (Bahrain) and Ali Al Obaidli (Qatar).

Earlier in the morning, Gupta carried far too many guns for Chawla, scoring a lopsided 5-2 victory. After taking the opening frame comfortably, he had runs of 47 and 30 to take a quick 3-0 lead in the best-of-nine frame encounter.

Looking down the wrong end of the barrel for the first time in the tournament, Chawla — given the top billing in the reseeding after the league phase — pulled one back.

Gupta regrouped quickly and punished Chawla’s error to go up 4-2. He looked set to seal the match in the next frame but missed the green. Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Chawla held his nerve to take the frame on the black.

After the initial safety skirmishes in the seventh frame, Gupta potted a long red and rifled in a match-winning break of 33 to seal the deal.

Results:
Quarterfinals: Paras Gupta (Ind) bt Sunny Wang (Sin) 5-0 (35-28, 44-9, 40-2, 53-12, 59 (59)-0).
Pre-quarters: Paras Gupta bt Kamal Chawla (Ind) 5-2 (45-0, 63 (47)-4, 36 (30)-19, 26-35, 41-34, 25-34, 37 (33)-0).