Agrawal snatches thriller; Delhi lads Altamash roll on

19.12.2014

Altamash Saifi

Aditya Agrawal of Railways snatched a 7-6 thriller to storm into the quarter-finals, in the Rs. 1.89 lakh NSCI-BoI All India 9-Ball Open Pool tournament, on Friday.

Tamil Nadu based Rafath Habib of Railways, Brijesh Damani of Indian Oil, Laxman Rawat of Triace and Delhi duo Altamash Saifi and Avinash Kumar were the others to enter the last eight.

Agrawal, who sneaked into the pre-quarter-finals from Group F, rallied brilliantly from 1-3 to overcome compatriot Malkeet Singh in the closest encounter of the day. Agrawal fell behind once more at 4-5 before taking the lead at 6-5 and was forced into the decider in the race-to-seven racks contest.

In other tight matches, Shivam Arora of Khar Gymkhana beat compatriot Ishpreet Singh Chadha 7-4, while Siddharth Parikh halted Faisal Khan by the same margin in an all-Railways tie.