Published: December 10, 2025 at 2:19 pm
Sumit Talwar’s giant-killing days came to an end on Wednesday as fancied Sundeep Gulati came up with a brilliant show en route to a 5-1 annihilation in the fourth round of the Joy Heyball International Open in Chandigarh on Wednesday.
Gulati’s lopsided victory over Talwar, who had earlier beaten National runner-up Kamal Chawla and India No. 3 Harish Kumar, earned the Asian champion a spot in the knockout round of 64.
Also advancing to the knockouts were the formidable Shivam Arora, Keerthana Pandian, South African David Anderson and Egypt’s Mohd El Molla among others.
While Arora outclassed Anmoldeep Singh 5-0 in the fourth round, Keerthana, the National 6-red snooker champion from Kolar, was equally impressive in her 5-1 rout of Vaibhav Dhamija.
David Anderson was too good for Ketan Sabhachandani as he cruised to a 5-1 victory and Mohd El Molla brooked no challenge as he thumped Rajat Khaneja 5-0.
Talented Natasha Chethan, meanwhile, went down 2-5 to Younis Nazir Kuchey and will play Ankur Nanda in the losers’ bracket for a place in the knockouts.
Select results (Round 4, Indians unless mentioned): Sundeep Gulati bt Sumit Talwar 5-1; Shivam Arora bt Anmoldeep Singh 5-0; Keerthana Pandian bt Vaibhav Dhamija 5-1; Satnam Singh bt Chandan Gulati 5-0; Mohd El Molla (Egy) bt Rajat Khaneja 5-0; David Anderson (RSA) bt Ketan Sabhachandani 5-1; Bablu Chauhan bt Chetan Chabda 4-3; Younis Nazir Kuchey bt Natasha Chethan 5-2; Abhijeet Ranade bt Wasim Iqbal (Shootout).
Losers’ bracket (Round 5): Kamal Chawla bt Gaurav Chabda 5-3; Sachin bt Prateek Jain 4-3; Ankur Nanda bt Harish Kumar (Shootout); Pushpender Singh bt Ayush Sinha 5-0; Karthik BC bt Navdeep C 5-1; Laxman Rawat bt Saketh Saurav 5-1.
