Pune: Pune challenger Viren Sharma survived both his opening two round matches in the Senior Snooker qualifying round of the Maharashtra State Senior Snooker and Billiards Selection (leg-1) Championship 2018.
In the first round Sharma overcame a strong fight from his Pune opponent Ajinkya Swami pulling off a tight 3-2 (63-33, 16-46, 39-66, 56-42, 62-48) victory in the best-of-5-frame match at Poona Club.

Later, in the second round match at Deccan Gymkhana, he managed to scrape past another Pune rival Saad Sayeed 3-2 (44-70, 46-45, 6-70, 59-28, 73-46) to qualify for the main draw of the competition. Meanwhile, Chiplun cueist Omkar Gore in splendid fashion recovered from a 0-2 deficit to sideline Pune’s Satchit Jamgaonkar snatching a deserving 3-2 win in a first round encounter. 

Gore struggled initially against Jamgaonkar and dropped the opening two frames, but he gathered his wits and went on to pocket the last three frames in succession to seal his win with the frame scores reading 30-45, 50-58, 46-27, 51-21 and 58-15.