New Delhi: After becoming the first Indian ever to reach the final of a major ranking event, it was a sad end to Aditya Mehta's fairytale journey at the Indian Open world snooker as he went down tamely to China's Ding Junhui in the summit clash here Friday.
Mehta, who scalped world champions Peter Ebdon and Mark Williams en route his final dash in the 300,000-pound event, lost 0-5 to World No.4 Junhui in a lop-sided contest which saw the 27-year-old Mumbaikar struggling to find his feet in the best-of-nine-frames encounter, which lasted for two hours.
This is Junhui's eighth Ranking tournament victories on the Professional circuit after his earlier title triumphs in China Open (2005), UK Championship (2005, 2009), Northern Ireland Trophy (2006), Welsh Open (2012), PTC Grand Finals (2013) and Shanghai Open (2013).
Mehta, who had come into the final just an hour after playing a long, intense semi-final against Scotland's Stephen Maguire this afternoon, suffered from fatigue as the class and safety play which he had shown against his other worthy rivals was missing from his game.
Junhui too had played his semi-final against Scotland's Robbie Williams this morning but his clash was neither as exhausting as that of Mehta nor it took him three hours to send his opponent packing home. This means, Junhui got at least 5-6 hours to recover for the match.
However, there was no denying Junhui's shot precision and potting prowess which saw the Chinses prodigy knocking the day light out of World No.1 Neil Robertson and World No.10 John Higgins earlier in this tournament.
The youngest player ever to win three ranking titles, and the only one other than John Higgins to do so before his 20th birthday, Junhui looked at ease against World No.72 Mehta and not for once found the going tough which reflected in the score line ? 76(52)-36, 87(81)-0,107-0, 93-1, 116(100)-1.
It was Mehta, who opened the scoring with a break of 30 in the first frame but, once he missed the red, Junhui came up with a fluent 52-clearance to go 1-0 up.
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