New Delhi: Indian cueist Aditya Mehta on Thursday set up a mouth-watering quarter-final clash against compatriot Pankaj Advani after ending the challenge of double World champion Mark Williams in the Indian Open snooker tournament here.
History-making Mehta became only the second Indian cueist after Advani to reach the quarter-final of the world ranking snooker event when he put it across World No.18 Williams 4-2 in a dramatic pre-quarterfinal finish.
Advani had brought India on to the global map of snooker by storming into the quarter-finals of the Welsh Open earlier this year. The match between Advani and Mehta holds a lot of significance as it would be for the first time the two Indian cueists will be up against each other on the professional tour and whoever wins this evening will progress to the semi-finals of the ranking event, another first for India.
In the morning session, Advani had notched up a hard-fought 4-3 win over World No.12 Stuart Bingham. Being made to play a 10am match after a long and intense game the previous night, Advani lived up to his reputation of overcoming adversity, closing out a worthy opponent Bingham in the decider of the best-of-seven frames.
Battling and getting the better of World No.11 Mark Allen's challenge till 11pm on Wednesday, Advani, an eight-time world champion, had to be back on the table in less than 12 hours against one of the toughest competitors in the fray.
Advani started well with a break of 53 to capture the first frame convincingly. Bingham, the dangerous customer that he is, responded with a fluent 110 break levelling the match 1-1.
The Indian pulled back the next two frames with 67 and 53 breaks, being only one frame away from rewriting snooker history. But that wasn't meant to happen in a hurry. Bingham rose to the occasion of impending defeat to enforce the decider with big breaks of 72 and 119.
In the decider, with momentum in Bingham's favour, Advani was not the favourite. The Indian's opponent broke down after a 30 break which seemed to be the final blow. Instead, Advani sprung out of his seat to capitalise on the mistake, knowing well that this was possibly his only chance to seize a win.
The world champion enthralled his fans with a courageous and well-crafted 86 to stamp his authority. In the match between Mehta and Williams, the 28-year-old Mumbaikar, ranked 72nd in the world, kept his nerve, especially in the tense sixth frame. Williams never quite looked the player who had won the World title in 2000 and 2003.
After losing the first frame 34-65, Mehta put on a dominating show to win the second and third on breaks of 54 and 66 respectively.
A loose safety shot by Mehta in the tight fourth allowed the 38-year old Williams to level at 2-2. Mehta won another close frame for a 3-2 advantage and looked set to take the sixth when he came on nicely for the black after potting the 14th red.
However, the black hung on the mouth of the top left packet after hitting the jaw. Williams, trailing 32-58, took the last red and cleared up to blue to narrow the deficit to 17 points.
Both made a few blank visits, playing safe and at one point. Eventually, Mehta sank the blue and Williams knocked the black in with the pink to lose the match.
Meanwhile, Stuart McGill, the 22-year old from Scotland, ranked 49th, knocked out World No.19 Joe Perry of England 4-2, finishing the match with a break of 138 in the last frame while World No.4 Ding Junhui eliminated four-time World champion John Higgins 4-2.
World No.1 Australian Neil Robertson fought off China's Liang Wenbo 4-2 with a century break in the sixth frame.
Results: Pankaj Advani (70) defeated Stuart Bingham (8) 4-3: 99(53)-26, 1-117(117), 80(67)-15, 69(53)-16, 11-72(72), 8-119(119), 86(86)-30; Aditya Mehta bt Mark Williams 4 ? 2 (34-65, 79(54)-21, 85(66)-0, 45-74, 63-49, 70-41).
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