Malkeet Singh has emerged as the new National 6-Red snooker men’s champion, beating his RSPB colleague E Pandurangaiah in the final at the ongoing National Billiards and Snooker Championships in Chennai.
Singh defeated Pandurangaiah 7-5 in a keenly-contested best-of-13 frames summit clash on Saturday.
Earlier, he had come up with a morale-boosting come-from-behind 6-5 triumph over favourite and 26-time IBSF world champion Pankaj Advani (PSPB) in the semi-final stage.
Pandurangaiah came into the title round high on confidence after getting past a fancied Aditya Mehta (PSPB) 6-4 in the other semi-final.
Regardless, it was former champion Advani’s loss, after having all but sealed the match at 5-3, which left the Indian cue sports community astounded.
Malkeet prevailed in the final three frames 59-0, 43-1, 67-13 in a sensational fashion against Advani to register the greatest upset in the event.
“Malkeet held his nerve and got the better of me towards the end,” said Advani, last edition’s runner-up, who later also lost the third-place playoff to Mehta.
In women’s 6-Red snooker, defending champion Vidya Pillai (Karnataka) will be headlining a strong quarterfinal field that includes the reigning IBSF world U-21 snooker champion Keerthana Pandian (Karnataka) and runner-up Anupama Ramachandran (Tamil Nadu).
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