White and Lee Reach Indian Final
Jimmy White and Stephen Lee go head to head in the final of the CCI Open Invitation Snooker event held at the Cricket Club of India in Mumbai.
White and Lee were joined at the start of the event by IBSF world champion, Alfie Burden and the Ladie’s number one, Reanne Evans along with a host of Indian players including the former tour players Manan Chandra, Aditya Mehta and Yasin Merchant as well as India’s most famous cueist, Geet Sethi.
The invited players were joined by a number of players who successfully negotiated the qualifying stage from an original entry of 160.
There were no real surprises in the group stages with all of the star turns negotiating a path through to the knock-out stage.
Stephen Lee and Alfie Burden went through undefeated, although White finished in second place in Group C behind Chandra and Evans scraped through claiming fourth spot in Group D after winning just two matches.
In the last 16, White ended the hopes of Sethi, arguably the best exponent of both Billiards and Snooker in the world.
Chandra, who had made the highest break of the group stage (140), eased past Evans by five-frames-to-one sealing the win with another century in frame six.
Burden and Lee swept aside their opponents while Mehta and Merchant were joined in the quarter finals by Lucky Vatnani, Kamal Chawla.
The match of the round saw White trail Merchant by five-frames-to-one only for the six-times world championship finalist to recover and win five frames on the spin and book his place in the next round.
Elsewhere, Stephen Lee eased past Aditya Mehta by six-frames-to-one and Chandra made his experience count as he ran out a 6-4 winner against Vatnani, despite his younger opponent leading by four-frames-to-three.
The fourth quarter-final provided an upset as Chawla won the last two frames to knock out Burden by six-frames-to-four.
The best of fifteen frame semi-finals both ended in 8-4 victories for the English pair, though White after surviving a scare in the previous round looked the more impressive.
At one stage, he and Chawla produced three century breaks in as many frames with White making 101 and 105 to lead 5-1 before his Indian opponent responded with a 100 of his own. The world seniors champion retained control and thrilled the local ‘Whirlwind’ fans by reaching the final.
Despite losing the opening frame, Lee was never really in trouble against Chandra and eventually closed out the match with a break of 87 in frame twelve.
Full results here...
Picture - Vivek Pathak (Cue Sports India)
