Aditya in final of Kolkata Open Invitational Snooker C'ship

Kolkata: India No 2 Aditya Mehta showed nerves of steel overcoming a stiff challenge from Manan Chandra in semifinals to set up a title clash against Kamal Chawla in the Kolkata Open Invitational Snooker Championship, here today.

It will be a revenge match for the Indian Open runner-up Mehta, who had lost to Chawla in the league stage. In a tricky semifinal battle, Chandra unexpectedly snatched two frames in the start but without wasting much time Mehta showed his class as he geared up to the challenge producing a rally of required five frames to seal his final berth.

In the quarters, Mehta blanked Yasin Merchant 4-0. Yasin had a break of 44 in second frame but Mehta settled the issue with some fantastic potting. In the other half, Chawla ousted home 'boy' Brijesh Damani with an identical score of 5-2.

Damani managed to pull two frames after losing first one but that was not enough as Chawla raised the bar winning the remaining frames by a narrow margin.

Results: Semi Finals: Aditya Mehta beat Manan Chandra 5-2 (00-104, 19-68, 79-56, 78-18, 86-26, 63-58, 77-01); Kamal Chawla beat Brijesh Damani 5-2 (69-14, 22-64, 41-58, 67-19, 65-58, 57-54, 75-32); Quarter Finals: Kamal Chawla beat Siddharth Parikh 4-0 (80(54)-38, 76(49)-22, 87(63)-06, 65(33)-12); Brijesh Damani beat Alok Kumar 4-1 (73-60, 60-58, 41-77, 68-56, 74(55)-10); Aditya Mehta beat Yasin Merchant 4-0 (59(37)-10, 78-45(44), 80(80)-04, 64-10); Manan Chandra beat Faisal Khan 4-2 (68-48, 34-75, 74-06, 64-27, 26-51, 63-13).