Kunal shines at Junior National Billiards Meet

Kunal Agarwal, the state champion of Orissa, beat Malkit Singh (UP) 578-323 to storm into the quarterfinals of the 34th Junior National Billiards Championship being played at Hotel Clarks Shiraz in Agra (UP) today. Bhubaneswar cueist Kunal, who defeated Himanshu Agarwal (Maharashtra) 486-307 earlier in the first round, would next meet Karnataka’s Mundir Sherazi. But Kunal’s statemate Nishant Biswal conceded his first round match against Chandigarh’s Ankit Sharma while trailing 296-452. Earlier in the 5th Sub-junior National Snooker Championship, Orissa state runner-up Chirag Arora beat Samay Wadhwan (Mah) 2-0 in the first round but lost to Utsav Ramani (Guj) 0-2 in the prequarterfinals. Orissa champion Asutosh Padhy, however, crashed out in the first round, losing to Anmoldeep Singh (Punjab) by 0-2 frames.