I put extra pressure on myself: Mehta

Aditya Mehta sealed his spot as the second seed in the knockout draw of the 25th Asian Snooker Championship in Tangshan, China.

India’s only other qualifier, Manan Chandra, made it to the same half of the draw, throwing open the possibility of an all-India quarterfinal. The action gets under way from Friday.

After winning three matches without conceding a frame, Mehta had a tough opponent in UAE’s Mohammad Al Joaker, who stretched him to a decider on Thursday.

Mehta clinched it 4-3 to retain his unbeaten record in the tournament. “I was a bit complacent and putting extra pressure on myself. The decider also went down to the wire and luckily I ended up on the winning side,” Mehta told DNA from Tangshan.

He will meet Malaysian Lai Chee Wei in the pre-quarterfinals on Friday.
“I have played him once before when I lost 4-5. But I’m quite confident about my chances this time,” Mehta said.

On the draw, he said, “My half is quite tough. I could meet Manan in the quarterfinal and then there are great players like James Wattana and Issara Kachaiwong.”

Chandra, who suffered his first loss of the tournament against Thailand’s Kachaiwong 3-4 made it to the draw unseeded. He will meet Hong Kong’s Au Chi Wai first up in the knockouts.

“I lost a great match against Issara. The match was of high quality as each frame had a break of around 50-80. In the decider, I started off with a difficult pot to make 24, when I had an unlucky kick on the ball. Then on, he capitalised on my mistake and made a break of 49 to win the match.”

India No.4 Brijesh Damani went out losing three of his four matches in the round robin stage of the tournament.