17-Sep-2009 123
Kunal Agarwal, the state champion of Orissa, crashed out in the quarterfinals of the 34th Junior National Billiards Championship, losing to Karnataka’s Mundir Sherazi 449-452 at Agra (UP) today.
With this narrow win, Sherazi joined Shahbaz Khan (PSPB), Dhwaj Haria (Gujarat) and Aditya Agarwal (Delhi) in the round robin league. In the other three quarterfinals, Shahbaz beat Himanshu Jain (AP) 651-366, Dhwaj defeated Jai Shankar Shaw (WB) 507-281 and Aditya thrashed Ketan Chawla (MP) 452-286.
Earlier yesterday, Sheraji successfully defended his National sub-junior billiards title, outplaying Dhwaj Haria in the final 2-1. The sub-junior snooker crown went to Delhi’s Lalit Dahia, who got the better of Sahil Sharma (Punjab) 2-0 in the final.
Meanwhile, groupings were release for the Senior National Billiards main draw, comprising eight groups of six cueists each. Orissa State champion Subrat Das was placed in group-B along with superstar Geet Sethi (Gujarat), Nittin Kohli (UP), Arif Akhtar (Chandigarh), D Rajkumar (Karnataka) and Deepak Rupani (AP).
Orissa runner-up Ahasan-ul Haque was included in group-C with Dhruv Sitwala (PSPB), Rafath Habib (Railway), MC Manoj (Tamil Nadu), Subodh Lahari (Chandigarh) and a qualifier.
