Chennai
Shalouf, an excellent potter, had a 3-0 lead against Girish before the latter came to terms with the match. Shalouf posted 30 points in the fourth frame, going out of position on red after cutting a black from minus angle. Girish made a 24 break and followed it up with a very difficult 51 table clearance, putting the scoreline at 1-3. Girish fought his way and won the next two frames to be level at three all.
Shalouf, having lost three frames in a sequence, held on to his nerves. He played sensibly and won the decider. Aadesh Kothari of Q-Lounge defeated Rafath Habib of Railways in the deciding frame too. Aadesh was up 2-0 even before Rafath could settle down. Rafath took advantage of the simple red Aadesh missed, reducing the deficit to 1-2.
Aadesh got his long potting and made small breaks to move to a 3-1 lead in the best-of-7 frames Round-of-32 knockout match. Rafath used his experience and started accumulating points to level the contest at three all at the end of the sixth frame. Rafath then tried to pot the last red to the yellow pot and unfortunately fouled, with the brown ball getting potted.
With the foul points, Aadesh also got a freeball at 23-22. He called play again. After a few more strokes, Rafath potted green in the top pot and came too thin on brown, with green in the spot. Aadesh then got an opening to pot the blue. He did it successfully and cleared the table to come up trumps.
Results: Round-of-32: Shalouf of Kerala beat R Girish of Railways 4-3 (77-9, 71-33, 65-33, 30-75(51), 41-57, 37-75, 67-30); Nitesh Madan of Railways beat Prabhu of Gymkhana 4-1 (85-16, 50-61, 90-48, 52-26, 67-2); Anuj Uppal of Delhi beat Saranraj of Coimbatore 4-0 (57-10, 75(62)-8, 60-49, 77-0); S Shrikrishna of SVS Club beat Sree Deepadarshan of TNBSA 4-0 (101-31, 75-55, 60-21, 65-34);
Daksh Reddy of MCC beat Peter Paul of Railways 4-1 (71-43, 81(75)-0, 88-44, 61-42, 85(65)-5); Varun Kumar of MCC beat Sundarraj of Towers Club 4-0 (79-16, 62-09, 72-13, 70-23); R Loganathan of TNBSA beat Naveen of Coimbatore 4-3 (33-42, 9-45, 68-26, 54-47, 14-46, 74-21, 78-7); BC Karthik beat A Arvind of Railways 4-2 (55-66, 27-63, 62-34, 66-2, 58-21, 58-11);
Adesh Kothari of Q-Lounge beat Rafath Habib of Railways 4-3 (57-32, 74-8, 42-55, 65-35, 09-72, 21-81, 41-34); Prem Prakash of SVS Club beat Venkatesham of Railways 4-1 (72-21, 61-37, 9-62, 77-31, 63-21); Pandurangaiah of Railways beat Abhinav of Buddys 4-0 (56-19, 70-14, 66-18, 72(62)-7); Hanish Sharma of Delhi beat SA Saleem 4-0 (61-58, 92-42, 54-37, 56-19); Faisal Khan of Railways beat Kankan Shamsi of Uttar Pradesh 4-2 (43-74, 80-30, 71-47, 52-31, 22-68, 98(68)-0).
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