Mumbai: Malabar Hill Club cueists Manav Panchal and Rajeev Sharma, both earned a hard-fought victories in their respective round-robin league matches of the Senior men’s snooker event of the BSAM organised Maharashtra State Junior Snooker and Senior Snooker & Billiards Selection (leg 1) Championship, at the Bombay Gymkhana billiards room.
In a Group-F encounter, Panchal lost the first two frames but recovered in splendid fashion to pocket the next three frames to put it across Dombivali Gymkhana’s Aashit Pandya and record a fighting 3-2 (18-75, 44-70, 59-52, 86-18 and 92-25) win. Panchal had earlier defeated Pune’s Rajwardhan Joshi 3-1.
Sharma produced a late fight to overcome Nashik’s Pankaj Khatri by a tight 3-2 frame scores in a Group-E contest. Khatri potted consistently to win the first and third frames while losing the second by a slender 1-point to take a 2-1 lead. Sharma won the last two frame to clinch a satisfying 41-72, 68-67, 22-70, 59-50 and 54-51 victory.