Bawa stuns his way into round of 64

MUMBAI: Maharashtra's Ish Bawa, playing in familiar surroundings, enjoyed a good run of the balls as he won both his matches to qualify for the knockout round of the NSCI-National Pool Championship, 2012.
Bawa, a member of the NSCI, did not take much time to adjust to the tables and quickly got into rhythm as he first scored a stunning win against seasoned Delhi cueist Vijay Goel 5-3 in a long drawn Group-H encounter.
Having tasted success over a more recognised opponent in his first match, Bawa seemed to have grown in confidence as he later tamed the challenge of Gujarat's Shehzad Shaikh posting a quick 5-2 victory to make the round of 64.
Last year's champion, Alok Kumar of PSPB started off strongly by also winning both his matches to progress to the next round.
Meanwhile, top seed Sandeep Gulati of Delhi suffered a shock defeat in his first match of the men's 8-ball competition. The ace cueist from Delhi went down fighting to Maharashtra's Sumeet Devang 4-5 in the race to five frames double elimination round Group-C match at the National Sports Club of India, Worli on Saturday.
However, he managed to stay alive in the competition as he was awarded a walkover after his opponent Dipendra Pinkyar of Maharashtra failed to report for the match in the loser's bracket.
Results:
Men's 8-ball double elimination round - Group-A: Alok Kumar (PSPB) bt Nikhil Saigal (Mah) 5-0, Alok Kumar bt Prayansh Verma (Mah) 5-0, Nitesh Madan (Dli) bt Mahesh Jagdale (Mah) 5-2.
Group-B: Sumit Talwar (Chd) bt Abhay Doshi (Mah) 5-0, Prashant Mhatre (Mah) bt Anupam Jha (Bhi) 5-2, Sumit Talwar bt Prashant Mhatre 5-2.
Group-C: Alam Shaikh (Mah) bt Dipendra Pinkiyar (Mah) 5-1, Arpreet Seth (Chd) bt Ashutos Mitri (Mah) 5-1, Sumeet Devang (Mah) bt Sandeep Gulati (Dil) 5-4, Alam Shaikh bt Arpreet Seth 5-1.
Group-D: Abhishek Soparkar (Mah) bt Neeraj Kumar (PSPB) 5-3, Laxman Rawat (Dli) bt Ronnie Daruwalla (Mah) 5-1.
Group-E: K.S. Naveen Kumar (Kar) bt Satbir Narula (Mah) 5-0, Hasan Badami (Mah) bt V. Subramanian (Mah) 5-0, Divya Sharma (Har) bt Naveen Kumar 5-2.
Grou-F: B. Balaji Reddy (Kar) bt R. Girish (Rly) 5-4, Zulfikar Saria (Mah) bt Punnet Kaushik (Dli) 5-3, Pratamesh Sawant (Mah) bt Bunty Retra (Dli) 5-3, Rishabh Pandya (Mah) bt Sunil Jain (Mah) 5-1, Balaji Reddy bt Zulfikar Saria 5-0.
Group-G: Shabaaz Khan (PSPB) bt Raju Shah (Mah) 5-0, Rafat Habib (RSPB) bt Megh Shah (Mah) 5-0, Amon Goel (Mah) bt Nadeem Qureshi (Mah) 5-2, Shabaaz Khan (PSPB) bt Amon Goel (Mah) 4-1.
Group-H: Ish Bawa (Mah) bt Vijay Goel (Dli) 5-3, Dilip Kumar (RSPB) bt Rajit Mehta (Mah) 5-0, Ish Bawa bt Shehzad Shaikh (Guj) 5-2.