Mumbai: Aditya Mehta has put the defeat at the hands of Chinese Jin
Long in the final of the 24th Asian Snooker Championship
in
Dubai out of his mind.
He prefers to look at a string of tournaments to follow and his
debut in the World Professional circuit for which he has got a wild
card from
Asia. He follows Geet Sethi, Om
Agrawal and Yasin Merchant.
The final jinx caught up with Aditya Mehta again as he lost the
Asian snooker final to the man who he outplayed in his opening match
of the tournament, Jin Long of
China, a
former Asian champ.
Had he won the Asian would have been Aditya’s major snooker title.
He had missed out on three titles earlier this year. The National
final against Pankaj Advani, the Khar Gymkhana Shyam Shroff memorial
to against Yasin Merchant and the 5th RK Gupta Memorial
final against Sourav Kothari at
Meerut.
The Indian Oil player and the son of Chembur Gymkhana player Snehal
Mehta had taken a break last year and come back stronger. He was
member of the silver-winning Asian Games Indian snooker team.
At
Dubai in the Asian
final Mehta was beaten but not disgraced to use the old cliché. Jin
led 1-0 but Aditya his century of the tournament to level. Jin hit
back with a 106. Mehta hit-back with a 56 but broke down. That was
as far as he could go. Jin, with experience of an Asian win, kept
Mehta at bay. It was a doubly bad day for
India
as Pankaj Advani lost 2-3 to Moh Keen Ho for the third spot.
Yasin Merchant wrote in his Gulf News column: “Mehta,
who had promised so much during the course of the tournament, let go
yet another opportunity to conquer his demons, which have plagued
him for four finals now. The look on Jin's face was that of a winner
and the game he produced, though not top class was just enough to
keep Mehta at bay.”
Feeling sorry for Aditya was the versatile cueist Devendra Joshi who
has seen Aditya grow from close quarters: “This final jinx was one
psychological barrier Aditya had to beat,” said Joshi the billiards
ace who was good enough to won the PSPB snooker title
beating Advani.
Still it was creditable for Aditya to reach the final which neither
Advani nor two-time Asian champ Yasin Merchant could do.
Said Joshi about Aditya’s improvement this season:
“He looks a complete player. There is
consistency. He doesn’t miss easy shots much. He is the country’s
best overall player. There is no rashness and flamboyance that marks
other players of his age. There is a purpose in every shot Aditya
plays.” Praise indeed.
Before Aditya the other Indians to win an Asian title were Yasin
Merchant and Alok Kumar. Yasin did it twice. Pankaj Advani has won a
world title but is yet to win the Asian. It proves how hard it is to
win at Asian level. One remembers covering the second Asians in 1985
in Singapore when our first world champion Om Agrawal fell by the
wayside along with Geet Sethi and Sanjay Sawant.
Hong Kong’s Gary Kwok had won
beating the first Asian champ Sakchai Simngram. Sanjay Sawant had
beaten Sakchai in the league but lost to him in the semis. Shades of
Aditya Mehta!