Mehta wins again

India's Aditya Mehta strengthened his chances of qualifying for the knock-out stage by recording his fourth straight win in as many matches in the IBSF World Under-21 snooker championship in Taupo, New Zealand on Sunday.

But the mood in the Indian camp was somewhat subdued as 18-year-old Sourav Kothari from Kolkata suffered his third loss in five matches, when he went down 3-4 (71-66, 50-67, 58-64, 64-25, 56-14, 12-65, 23-80) to Tyson Crinis of Australia.

Aditya beat Hamed Saeed Dhaif of Bahrain 4-1 (58-30, 79-48, 70-57, 35-54, 64-21) and is virtually certain to make it to the Round of 32 from his group.

On Monday, national champion Pankaj Advani will meet Adam Kinghorn of Australia, while Aditya takes Tian Pengfei of China and Sourav faces Alex Davies of England.

Meanwhile, defending champion Ding Junhui of China was beaten 3-4 defeat against 19-year old Australian, Shannon Dixon in a Group A match. Ding, the 2002 Asian Games gold medallist, however, having won all four of his previous matches, is almost assured of a spot in the knock-out phase.

Elsewhere, Neil Robertson of Australia, put together two century breaks (101, 103) en route to beating Jim Martin of
Northern Ireland 4-2, as did David Morris of England (118, 100) during a 4-0 win against Michael Wilson of New Zealand.

To also get among the centurions was Jamie O'Neil of England who cracked a 131 as he swept past Shannon Swain of New Zealand. 4-0.