NEW DELHI, January 5: Defending champion and top seed here, Heena Khandelwal of Maharashtra got a walkover while third seed Ashwani Puranik of Madhya Pradesh scored a comfortable 2-0 frame win over Amrita Mohapatra (Orissa) in the group league matches of the seventh Women's Snooker National Championship at IIT badminton hall here today.Heena got a walkover from her statemate Namrata Kumar and Ashwani outplayed national billiards runner-up Amrita Mohapatra, 61-19, 71-30.
Three-time National billiards champion Farah Khan of Karnataka also recorded an easy 63-22, 57-16 win over Cynthia Mukherjee of Bengal.
Fourth seed Anuja Thakur of Maharashtra had to wage a grim battle before beating Madhya Pradesh's Neelam Mittal 44-50, 55-29, 62-55. There were a spate of walkovers on the opening day of the snooker championships. The top two players from each group will qualify for the knockout stage.
Results (league matches)
Uma Devi (Kar) bt Sonal Mamoonwala (Mah) 62-47, 56-25; Retu Shrivastva (MP) bt Reena Parkash (Kar) 51-29, 25-36, 52-43; Renu Bharkatiya (MP) bt Jagruti Patel (Mah) 53-44, 44-49, 42-34; Meenal Bairagi (Mah) bt Kamala C Babu (TN) 40-47, 41-10, 76-27; Neelam Mittal (MP) bt T.V.Sridevi (Kar) 51-32, 47-45, 63-46; Varsha Mazmudar (Mah) bt Pooja Galundia (Raj) 50-15, 42-44, 58-26; Neeta Shangvi (Mah) bt Chitra (Kar) 65-13, 89-8.
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