Chawla off to winning start; Rawat goes down fighting

India's Ketan Chawla began his Asian Snooker Championships campaign with a gritty 4-2 win over Mohanna Alobaidli in his opening Group 'B' match here on Saturday. The 33-year-old from Indore, coming off a third-place finish at the Nationals recently, jumped to a quick 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven-frame match with meaningful breaks. Chawla could have won in straight frames, but lost the fourth on the black. The Qatari then came up with a fine break of 61 to reduce the margin. But before much damage could be done, Chawla upped his game a few notches to close out the match in the sixth frame. The Indian next takes on former champion Amir Sarkhosh of Iran. Elsewhere, India's Laxman Rawat, a former IBSF World 6-red snooker champion, went down 3-4 to Iran's Shahin Sabzi in Group 'J'. After splitting the first four frames, Rawat took the crucial fifth to go up 3-2. Unfortunately, he failed to build on the gains as the Iranian came back strongly to take the next two frames for a hard-fought victory. Results: Group B: Ketan Chawla (Ind) beat Mohanna Alobaidli (Qat) 4-2 (61-29, 73-58, 56-35, 58-59, 37-89 (61), 64-24). Group 'J': Shahin Sabzi (Irn) beat Laxman Rawat (Ind) 4-3 (74-38, 44-64, 79 (67) -45, 34-45, 37-61, 74-8, 75-18).