Mehta wins India’s 1st gold

Aug 01, 2013 |

Age Correspondent

New Delhi

Asian snooker champion Aditya Mehta toppled tournament favourite Liang Wenbo of China with a thumping 3-0 win to clinch the gold medal at the World Games in Cali, Columbia, on Tuesday. He became the first Indian to win a World Games title.
“This is my career’s best performance. I am delighted with this win. Fantastic day... A long awaited dream come true!!” tweeted an elated Mehta.
This is also India’s first medal since legendary shuttler Prakash Padukone’s bronze in the inaugural World Games in 1981 and only the second for India in the history of the Games. The Mumbai cueist, who took silver and bronze medals at the 2010 Asian Games, was in top form throughout the five-day tournament and easily defeated his opponent in the final. Mehta, world ranked 74th, managed to beat world no. 64 Dechawat Poomjaeng, and world no. 19 Joe Perry en route his title triumph.
“Mehta has now finally proven beyond doubt that he is by far the most accomplished, talented and sincere snooker player that we have seen since Yasin Merchant, who played on the pro circuit,” said Billiards and Snooker Association Maharashtra joint secretary Salil Deshpande.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/247134" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-9accf9a2d85697d6f7f12d0f7223e59d" value="form-9accf9a2d85697d6f7f12d0f7223e59d" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="88475590" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>