Rajani shunts out favourite Kumar

Mumbai, Aug 15 (UNI) Khar Gymkhana's Prakash Rajani pulled off a shock win over fancied Rushabh Kumar to advance to the billiards third round, in the Kotak Mahindra Bank-Wilson Jones Open Handicap Billiards&Snooker Championship, at the P J Hindu Gymkhana here today.

A consistent Rajani (+60) thrived on small but significant breaks to upset Kumar's (+30) calculations and put him under pressure throughout the tie. Rajani started well and took a comfortable lead, as Kumar made a late challenge but to no avail.

On yet another day of upsets, Gautam Jagtiani (+90) crushed Paul Ferreira (+70) 200-91 in another second round match while in tight third round encounters, Sanjiv Bijlani (+80) overcame Sunil Jain (+60) 200-186 and Sanjiv Kothari (+90) prevailed over Samuel Selven 200-194.

Devendra Joshi (-200) sounded an early warning to the rest of the formidable field when he struck two century breaks and a 96 on his way to demolish Karnataka lad Mundir Sherazi's streak with an emphatic 200-133 win to enter the pre-quarter-finals.

Joining Joshi in the last 16 was veteran C S Puranik (+40) of Mumbai Port Trust who crushed CCI's Kekoo Nicholson (+70) 200-139.

Earlier, in the second round, Joshi had warmed up with a fluent 200-164 win over Sakharam Ghade (+90) that included breaks in the 40s and 50s.

There was plenty of action in snooker as well, as Vaibhav Sharma stunned Matunga Gymkhana's Ramesh Sadarangani (+45) 2-1, while P J Hindu Gymkhana's Chandu Shah and West Bengal's Manish Jain overcame formidable opponents to make it to the pre-quarter-finals.

UNI