Mumbai: Favourites and second-seeded pairing of Yasin Merchant (scratch handicap) and Ishpreet Singh Chadha (scratch) survived a major scare from the young talented combo of the Mago brothers Harmehr (+20) and Sumehr (+10) before carving out a tight 3-2 win in a nail-biting pre-quarter-final match of the Khar Gymkhana Snooker Shootout 2019 at Khar Gymkhana’s Yasin Merchant Snooker Room.
Former two-time Asian snooker champion Yasin smoothly sailed past his young protégée Sumehr by a 75-38 points margin in the 15-red first frame before Ishpreet clinched a 45-23 win against Harmehr in the 6-red second frame and provide the team a 2-0 advantage. However, the youngsters Harmehr and Sumehr produced a determined fight back to win the next two frames to level the match scores.
In the 15-red doubles, Sumehr and Harmehr potted consistently to outclass their more accomplished pair of Yasin and Ishpreet by a solid 72-2 points difference before Harmehr got the better of Yasin 68-32 in the 15-red fourth frame and take the match to the fifth frame. The decider witnessed a close contest before Ishpreet managed to snatch a tight 42-40 win against Sumehr to ensure the second seeds survived being eliminated and progress to the quarter-finals.
Meanwhile in another interesting match, the Ahmedabad duo of Mohsin Achhava (+30) and Karmesh Patel (+20) registered a hard-fought win against Ashutosh Padhye (SCR) and Tahaa Khan (+10) pulling through by 3-2 margin. In contrast, the pair of Md. Hussain (+10) and Ketan Chawla (SCR) enjoyed a great roll of the balls and breezed past Rushabh Gohil (+30) and Shubham Randhe (+30) winning in straight frames 3-0.