Chennai, Dec 10 (PTI) Malkeet Singh has emerged as the new National 6-Red snooker men's champion, beating his RSPB colleague E Pandurangaiah in the final at the ongoing National Billiards and Snooker Championships here.

Singh defeated Pandurangaiah 7-5 in a keenly-contested best-of-13 frames summit clash on Saturday.

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Earlier, he had come up with a morale-boosting come-from-behind 6-5 triumph over favourite and 26-time IBSF world champion Pankaj Advani (PSPB) in the semi-final stage.

Pandurangaiah came into the title round high on confidence after getting past a fancied Aditya Mehta (PSPB) 6-4 in the other semi-final.

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Regardless, it was former champion Advani's loss, after having all but sealed the match at 5-3, which left the Indian cue sports community astounded.

Malkeet prevailed in the final three frames 59-0, 43-1, 67-13 in a sensational fashion against Advani to register the greatest upset in the event.

"Malkeet held his nerve and got the better of me towards the end," said Advani, last edition's runner-up, who later also lost the third-place playoff to Mehta.

In women's 6-Red snooker, defending champion Vidya Pillai (Karnataka) will be headlining a strong quarterfinal field that includes the reigning IBSF world U-21 snooker champion Keerthana Pandian (Karnataka) and runner-up Anupama Ramachandran (Tamil Nadu).

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)