It has emerged that numero uno snooker player Aditya Mehta of India remained on course to win a gold medal in the continuing World Games following clinching a hard-fought victory against pre-tournament favorite Perry Raymond in the quarterfinals of the quadrennial event at Cali in Columbia.
Actually, Mehta encountered a tough challenge with the World ranked 19 Perry before thrashing him by 3-2 and reserved a semifinal berth against Dechawat Poomjaeng of Thailand. Poomjaeng ousted another Indian and eight-time world champion Pankaj Advani by 3-1.
Mehta registered a comfortable 3-0 victory over Luis Lemus of Guatemala in his first-round match. However, he struggled against a more experienced Perry, who won his first & only ranking tournament at the Yixing Open earlier this year. In fact, Perry took the lead position in the tie winning the first frame quite comfortably before Mehta returned strongly to secure the 2nd frame and level the issue.
Remarkably, the Englishman again rushed ahead by winning the 3rd frame and hauled a commanding lead in the 4th before Mehta resorted to display amazing potting skills on the green baize to clinch it and carry the game into the decider. In fact, the Mumbai-based cueist dominated the 5th and final frame. He constructed a break of 50 to seal the issue in his favor and crash into the semifinals. Mehta, who is currently ranked 74th in the world, had won silver and bronze medals at the 2010 Asian Games. Unfortunately, there was disappointment in store for the Indian following Advani failed to live up to his billing and lost to Poomjaeng in the quarters.
The other semi-final will include competition between Liang Wenbo of China and Igor Figueiredo of Brazil.
