Royal Strikers, RRockets advance into quarter-finals

by Shrutee K/DNS

Mumbai, June 30: Royal Strikers and RRockets, both registered their third wins in Group-A and Group-B respectively and qualified for the quarter-final round of the Rs 20 lakh prize-money inaugural LIC-Snooker Premier League, and played at the Garware Club House on Thursday morning. In a Group-A encounter, Royal Strikers riding on the strong efforts from Sourav Kothari and seasoned campaigner Alok Kumar went on to snatch a 3-1 win in the best-of-5 game tie against Mumbai Stars and finish their league engagements with 6 points.

Sourav, who fetched the highest bid provided Strikers with the perfect start defeating young talent Ishpreet Singh Chadha 2-0 in the 15-red first game before Alok also enjoyed a good run with a 2-0 win over another youngster Rahul Sachdev in the 6-red second game to give the team a healthy 2-0 lead.

Mumbai Stars avoided a whitewash as their experienced combination of Ashok Shandilya and Arun Agrawal prevailed over Dhvaj Haria and Hamehr Mago 1-2 in the third game, which was a one-frame doubles game. However, Mumbai Strikers closed out the match when Hasan Badami played steadily to overcome Rajwardhan Joshi 2-1 in the 6-red fourth game.

On the adjacent table, RRockets inspired by the brilliant display from Sundeep Gulati and Laxman Rawat sidelined Ottoman Army by a comfortable 3-1 margin and are assured of pole position in Group-B as they have finished with 8 points, including 2 bonus points. Gulati came from behind to defeat Bharat Sissodiya 2-1 in the 15-red first game and give RRockets the lead before teammate Rawat blanked Nitesh Madan 2-0 in the 6-red second game to increase their lead to 2-0.

But RRockets doubles combo of Dhvaj Haria and Hamehr Mago were unable to maintain the momentum and lost the single doubles game 25-65 to the Ottoman Paiur of Varun Madan and PawanKohli. In the very game RRockets secured the win with Hitesh Kotwani getting the better of Abdul Rehman 2-1 in the 6 red, fourth game.