01-Oct-2008 106
Little-known Rushabh Jain created ripples in the quesports circle of Orissa by eliminating defending senior snooker champion Subrat Das in a quarterfinal clash of the 14th Visa Steel State Billiards and Snooker Championship at Bhubaneswar Club today.
Mumbai cueist Rushabh, who is in Orissa to study engineering, overcame a lacklusture start to upset top seed Subrat by 3-2 frames. A confident Subrat raced to a commanding position by taking the first two frames 68-26, 66-31.
But Rushabh bounced back in style to grab the next three frames 59-27, 62-2, 74-68. Inspired by the success, Rushav scripted another scintilating victory to storm into the final. This time he ousted Surit Singh 4-1.
Seeded cueists experieced a bad day on the table as second seed Ahsan-ul Haque lost to former champion Siddharth Sen 2-3 in another quarterfinal encounter.
Sen will meet junior snooker champion Rakesh Roshan Pradhan in the second semifinal tomorrow. Rakesh registed 3-1 identical wins over Hardeep Singh Saluja and Mihir Vora in his last two matches to book a berth in the last-four round.
RESULTS:
Senior snooker: Pre-quarters: Rakesh Roshan Pradhan bt Hardeep Singh Saluja 3-1 (91-4, 88-26, 44-73, 51-32).
Quarters: Rushav Jain bt Subrat Das 3-2 (26-68, 31-66, 59-27, 62-2, 74-68): Surit Singh bt G R Satpathy 3-0 (60-27, 40-25, 79-15): Siddharth Sen bt Ahsan-ul Haque 3-2 (24-59, 40-53, 64-40, 71-43, 65-16): Rakesh Roshan Pradhan bt Mihir Vora 3-1 (54-31, 60-48, 15-51, 46-28).
Semifinal: Rushav Jain bt Surit Singh 4-1 (100-1, 26-63, 63-13, 66-9, 71-15).
