Hari retains his title

 

Reading’s Hari Gehlot, who represents Cippenham in the Veterans’ British League, fought back to retain the title he won last year in the Cippenham Super 6 Veterans’ 1-Star Open tournament on Sunday. But he had to do it the hard way after losing the first two games of the final against Paul Carter from Sussex.

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Hari was in winning form throughout the event as the second seed raced through to the final with the loss of just a single game en route, that in the second round against Farhat Rasul. However, top seed Carter won the first two games of the final only for Hari to hit back 11-4 in the third. The fourth game could have gone either way but eventually was settled at deuce in favour of the Cippenham player who then turned a half-way deficit around to win the fifth and deciding game 11-7.

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Carter’s route to the final had been a little more troublesome having been 2-1 down in the second round against Chris Marlow. Carter, however, survived and followed that up with victories in the quarter-final against Tony West and in the semi-final against third seed Kevin Nicholls.

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Mark Banks, the other member of Cippenham’s top Veterans’ British League side in the field, reached his allotted semi-final place, beating Keith Falconer and Vadym Krevs before succumbing to Gehlot in the semi-final.

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The other quarter-finalists were Vishal Yadav, who lost to Nicholls, and Michael Silver, who was another victim of Hari .

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Of the other Cippenham players in the draw, Mike Rhodes, albeit seeded sixth, went out in round two to Krevs, while Graham Trimming also made it through the preliminary round groups into the competition proper. Keith Hall and Tony Jackson, both playing in their first ever open tournament, failed to make it through and then were eliminated in the consolation event.

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The consolation event, for players finishing fourth to sixth in the preliminary groups, gave Thamal Udamulla, a victim of a very tough group that included Gehlot, some cheer as he cut through the event and ultimately beat Paul Martindill 3-1 in the final.

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The tournament was organised by Graham Trimming and refereed by Wendy Porter.