Dilip Kumar looks innocuous and least flamboyant to pose any threat to the cueist. He went unnoticed until he started demolishing one player after another in this Nationals. He reached the quarterfinals almost stealthily when he ran into title aspirant Aditya Mehta in the Manisha Snooker Nationals at Indore.

Aditya, by virtue of a plant red, executed a splendid run of 86 to forge ahead. After that he became somewhat complacent and surrendered his led to one-all. He lost a frame for the first time in this National championship after winning 18 frames on a trot.

Soon the score became two-all. Dilip Kumar was playing with a word of caution executed some breathtaking pots to amass a mammoth break of 110 to lead 3-2.

When the chips are down, the champion looked like a tyro. He missed three shots playing with the rest. He was soon shaking his head, twitching his jaws, a feeble half smile, with a panther-like-gait. A vision of a great upset started renting in the air.

In the fourth frame, Aditya laid a clever snooker behind brown and Dilip, trying to wriggle out of it, gave a foul. It is very difficult for the referee Viru to set red at the same sequence. The argument went on for full ten minutes under the glare of public. The cluster of reds went helter and skelter. Dilip reluctantly agreed and thereafter played some wild shots and swing. Aditya was waiting for just that and he exploded after the incident to race to 5-3 and win the contest.

A smiling Dilip offered no excuse and like a true sportsman quietly left the arena. A beaming Aditya said, “Sometimes you win ugly matches. “ Apparently he was not aware that Dilip had beaten Aditya in the last year’s Invitational Tournament at the Cricket Club of India. He was all concentration in this match and paid scant respect to recent history.

The other quarterfinal between Lucky Vatnanai and Ishpreet Chadha almost did not attract attention in the sheer excitement that the Aditya-Dilip match generated. Soon, Ishpreet raced to an impregnable lead of 3-0 and thereafter Vatnani got up from his deep slumber to reduce it to 3-1. Vatnani then played some fantastic snooker in the next three frames to make it 4-4 by executing breaks of 87 and 86. Ishpreet just managed to win the last frame to reach the last four.

Manan Chandra made short work of giant killer Bharath Sisodia 5-2 and stormed into the semifinals.

In a ding-dong battle of supremacy the two Delhi lads, Sandeep Gulati and Anuj Uppal, played the longest match of the tournament in which the former triumphed. The match lasted for well over four hours.

The Results :

Men (quarterfinals): Aditya Mehta bt Dilip Kumar 5-3 (94-16, 14-62, 84-1, 7-61, 18-110, 106-0, 62-47, 67-27; Ishpreet Chadha bt Lucky Vatani 5-4 (70-0, 58-51, 63-27, 7-122, 75-0, 0-91, 0-86, 21-82, 57-21); Manan Chandra bt Bharath Sisodia 5-2 (69-0, 79-36, 11-82, 107-30, 60-21, 18-100, 8-28); Sandeep Gulati bt Anuj Uppal 5-4 (82-52, 50-77, 71-30, 25-62, 74-25, 67-23, 40-73, 15-83, 63-13).

Senior snooker women (quarterfinals): Aranxta Sanchez bt M. Chitra 3-0 (55-22, 65-62, 53-39); Vidya Pillai bt Keerat Bhandaal 3-0 (46-33, 80-15, 65-18); Varsha Sanjeev bt Indira Gowda 3-0 (55-10, 67-31, 66-36); Amee Kamani bt Neeta Sanghvi 3-0 (88-2, 64-30, 60-38).

Senior women billiards (semifinals): Aranxta Sanchez bt Neena Praveen 2-1 (71-75, 76-47, 76-32); Keerat Bhandaal bt R. Uma Devi 2-1 (75-67, 70-76, 75-42); For third place : Uma Devi bt Neena 2-0 (50-17, 5-37).