Mumbai: Indian Oil cueist Aditya Mehta produced a tremendous performance and with some slick potting breezed to a stunning 7-3 victory against arch-rival Pankaj Advani in the final of the Rs 12.9 lakh CCI All India Open Snooker Championship 2019 at the CCI’s Sir Wilson Jones Billiards Room, on Tuesday evening. It was a great comeback for the lanky Mumbai-based Mehta who has been struggling due to some health issues and has been playing with an unorthodox stance and cueing action did well to cruise to a 62-60, 0-91, 38-63, 37-70, 74-39, 79-7, 62-59, 84-13, 72-13 and 65-19 victory.
Mehta received the ‘Champions’ trophy and a handsome cheque of Rs 2 lakh. While Advani got the runners-up prize of Rs 1.30 lakh. Advani also pocketed the top of Rs 25,000 for the highest break of 131 he had earlier craftily constructed in the round of 64 match. Both the ace cueists Advani and Mehta warmed up perfectly and quickly got into the groove by compiling half century breaks. The top-ranked Indian Advani showed promise at the start and on his second visit made a 53 run to gain the advantage, but a couple of visits later he fouled on the pink and Mehta did not waste time as he neatly rolled in a 56 break to take the opening honours.
The National champion Advani came good in the second and after making a 29 run at the start he followed it up with a break of 62 to pocket the frame and tie the scores. Later, Advani won the next two by close margins to take a 3-1 lead. However, Mehta playing with plenty of guts and gumption managed to snatch the fifth to bridge the gap and then constructed a super 79 clearance to win the sixth to go into the short interval with the scores level at 3-3.
Mehta maintained the winning momentum on resumption and came up with timely 43 clearance to snatch the seventh frame to regain the lead 4-3. Thereafter, Mehta played with greater confidence and potted more consistently as he went on to also pocket the subsequent three frames to wrap up the match and emerge champion.
Results: Finals:- Aditya Mehta (Indian Oil) beat Pankaj Advani (ONGC) 7-3 (62-60, 0-91, 38-63, 37-70, 74-39, 79-7, 62-59, 84-13, 72-13 and
65-19).