'Young' Anuj stuns veteran Geet Sethi

Anuj Uppal

Delhi challenger Anuj Uppal played out of his skin to overcome the legendary Geet Sethi 4-3 in the semi-finals of the third Masters National Snooker Championship at MIG Club yesterday. In the tournament for above-40s, Uppal, 42, is among the youngest but played like a veteran. He began the best-of-seven-frame final racking up a break of 63 to take Frame 1 (78-43). In the second, he accumulated 76 points to Sethi's 34. Sethi, 58, then used all his experience to launch a fight back. Uppal was sloppy on a red and left the cue ball surrounded by a bunch of reds.

Sethi stepped up and leaned over the table, but realised his t-shirt would touch one of the balls, so he paused, tucked in the tee and executed a pretty pot that laid the foundation for a 60-point break. Sethi took the frame 76-3. In Frame 4, both players played defensively, snookering each other. Uppal lost out to the wily Sethi here. Sethi cleaned up the six coloured balls to take the frame 63-38. In Frame 5, Uppal found his mojo back. Sethi erred on a cut shot and Uppal got in a break of 45 and took the frame 61-17.

Geet Sethi

In Frame 6, so determined was Sethi to win now that he went up and brought his spectacles to closely check the angle on one of the reds. Sethi then executed what was easily the shot of the match. He played an angled plant shot on the reds, drawing applause from the spectators as he clinched the frame 64-2. In Frame 7 though Uppal resurfaced to show his skill and array of shots to emerge a 69-7 victor. Uppal will play Rafat Habib of Railways in today's final. Habib beat Maharashtra's Cherag Ramakrishnan 4-0 in the other semi-final.

Catch up on all the latest sports news and updates here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates