Sourav Kothari ousts Rafath Habib in pre-quarters: 2012 ASCA International Snooker Championship
After performing tremendously in the pre-quarters of the 2012 ASCA International Snooker Championship, one of India’s leading cuemen Sourav Kothari was able to make his way into the quarter-final stage of the event. He faced compatriot Rafath Habib in the
pre-quarters and unnerved him quite easily by the score line of 4-2 to reach the Last-eight round.
The tournament has produced some classy snooker games so far where potters from around the world have shown great determination and sportsmanship. The initial stages of the tournament were quite tussling as the line-up contained many rookies who were placed
against top dogs of the game in their opening rounds so the results were obvious.
Kothari was in good shape from the beginning of the event and performed convincingly to hit the advance stages. He started off with a brilliant 2-0 lead over Habib in the game after he cruised into victories in the first two games by the score line of 69-14
and 57-53. The second frame was quite tough as both potters were competitive but Kothari managed to prevail.
Habib bounced back in the third frame and add one frame win on his side of the score-board by the score line of 13-82. The next two frames were shared between the two potters while the sixth frame was taken by Kothari to put the final stamp on his victory.
Kothari will be looking forward to make an appearance in the final stages of the event.
However, the real competition will commence now because the line-up has filtered after the finish of the first couple of rounds. The quarter-final stage will definitely be interesting to watch as it contains leading potters only.
Overall results:
Sourav Kothari (India) bt Rafath Habib (India) 4-2 (69-14, 57-53, 13-82, 61-53, 22-69, 67-28),
Kamal Chawla (India) bt Manan Chandra (India) 4-1 (1-95, 68-59, 82-21, 83-22, 70-56)
Laxman Rawat (India) bt Shabaaz Khan (India) 4- 0 (60-36, 79-42, 53-43, 80-27),
Andy Lee (Hong Kong) bt R. Yotharuck (Thailand) 4-1 (57-22, 9-63, 70-8, 94-18, 70-20),
Noppon Saengkham (Thailand) bt Rupesh Shah (India) 4-3 (63-60, 113(59,54)-8, 43-79, 54-79, 65-49, 0-93(63), 69-59),
Aditya Mehta (India) bt Divya Sharma (India) 4-0 (60-49, 72-50, 101-8, 128(76)-0),
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