10th Asian Under-21 Snooker Championship 2009 PYC Club - Pune 11-19 April 2009

Daily Reports

12.04.2009

Chinese Cueists steal the thunder

Anda Zhang from China

The fourth Chinese seed Zhang Anda became the first player to break the 100 points barrier with a facile 3-nil triumph over Alammar Abdul Rehman of Saudi Arabian in the league stage  on the second day of the Rewale Group Asian Under 21 Snooker Championship 2009 at the PYC (Hindu) Gymkhana here today.

This feat he achieved in just the second visit to the table when he cleared the table with the imposing tally of 104 points. The other  fourth Chinese cueist Lv Chengwie almost emulated his compatriot feat in the third and final frame over Vivek Chopra in a group 'C' match.

He potted seven blacks one pink, a blue and a yellow  and had an open table . He however, muffed an easy potting of the red in the center pocked and had to content with a  a break of 72 in his very first visit to the table. He won  65-17, 66-53, 72-8.

The Chinese dominance in this 10^th edition of the Asian under 21 championship became clear with their four member quartet of top see Li Yuan, fourth seed Zhang Anda and Lv Chengwie and Cao Yupeng taking an iron grip in their respective pools to make certain of their entry into the knock out.

The Indian national junior champion Shahbaz Khan, by registering his third straight win from Group `A’ also made his position strong to qualify along with top see Li Yuan into the knock out.

The Indian giant killer Pushpinder Singh who had shocked second seed Thanawat Thirapongpalboon of Thailand in his opening round mat ch when gong down to the Chinese challenger Cao Yupeng  by 3-1 margin in a Pool `B’ match and Manish Jain, after raising visions of a victory by winning the first two frame lost his nerve to go down fighting to Amir Sarkosh of Iran by a 2-3 margin.