Indian cueists continued to enjoy a good run, with Aditya Mehta of Mumbai and Sourav Kothari of Kolkata maintaining their winning streak on the third day of the IBSF World Under-21 snooker championship in Taupo, New Zealand, on Friday.
Seventeen-year-old Aditya staged a brilliant fightback, after trailing 2-3, to defeat 15-year old Jamie Jones of Wales 4-3 in a tight Group D match.
The Indian saw off a break of 55 by Jones to clinch his third straight win and move a step closer to qualifying for the knock-out stage, where the top four from each of the eight groups of eight players qualify.
Aditya, who had earlier beaten Sascha Lippe of Germany and Australia's Adam Gabrish without dropping a frame, pipped Jones 64-41, 24-58, 73-35, 23-87, 37-78, 75-41, 74-10.
The 18-year old Sourav maintained his good form to post his second win in three Group E matches with a 4-0 drubbing of Jason Todd of New Zealand.
Sourav had lost his opening league match 1-4 to China's Li Yinxi, but shrugged off that loss to beat Majid Saeed Dhaif (Bahrain) 4-1 in his next outing.
He defeated Todd 65-12, 60-27, 48-30, 70-56 yesterday.
The third Indian entry, National champion Pankaj Advani had an unscheduled day off as his opponent Chang Lu Ku of Chinese Taipei withdrew from the tournament.
Pankaj is sitting pretty in Group F, having won both his matches so far. He beat Shannon Swain (New Zealand) 4-0, with a break of 66 on Wednesday and then defeated Jamie O'Neill (England) 4-1, aided by runs of 63, 62 and 50.
Pankaj clashes with Edward Foo Ming Fa (Singapore) while Sourav takes on Anthony Krysa (Wales) tomorrow, when Aditya has a day off.
Meanwhile, Mark Allen of Northern Ireland recorded the day's only century break and the tournament's fourth, when he crafted a 114 while defeating Tian Pengfei of China 4-2 for his third win in Group D.
Defending champion and 2002 Asian Games gold medallist, Ding Junhui of China, gave yet another polished performance to record his third win in Group A, when he beat Abdullah N.Al-Baker of Qatar 4-0.
Ding had breaks of 62 and 65. Such was Ding's domination that Abdullah could garner a mere four points from as many frames as the Chinese ace won 81-0, 113-1, 65-2, 88-1.
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