New Delhi: Tarun Goel scored a hard-fought win over Bhupender Monga take a step closer to qualifying in the SBA Open-cum-Invitational Snooker Tournament at the Professional Billiards Hall here today. Goel defeated Monga 3-2 in a gruelling contest that lasted 50 minutes.
The other winners on the day included Neeraj Kumar of Railways who downed Amit Verma 3-1, Mandeep Singh beat Gary Kalia 3-0, and Rajat Khaneja beat Akash Wadhwani 3-0. In the afternoon session, Puneet Kaushik scored a 3-1 over his rival while Vipin Premi and Akshay Choudhary had easy outings against their opponents.
Goel began rather badly in the morning losing his first frame 38-49 but came back strongly in the second to win 70-37. But in the next frame he failed to seize the opportunity that came his way on this second visit as he lost an easy potting. But Monga grabbed the chance with both hands and went on to not up a 64-29 win to level the score.
He, however, could not do much after that as Goel played with a lot of determination and guts to shut Monga out without a hiccup for a 38-49, 70-37, 29-64, 58-26, 57-52 triumph.
The only other match that kept the spectators’ interest alive was the one between Neeraj Kumar and Amit Verma. Fortunately, after dropping the first frame, the Railways player picked up nice momentum to beat Verma 45-49, 64-50, 60-44, 61-24.
