Advani,Sethi triumph in snooker

Top seeded and the crowd favourite,Pankaj Advani scripted a straight frames victory over Niraj Khemka of West Bengal in the snooker event of the Indian National Billiards & Snooker Tournament 2009 being held at Agra. The PSPB and Indian champion in snooker Pankaj potted the balls with great accuracy and confidence to outplay Khemka by 76-08,63-52 and 68-28. In the second frame Khemka had a good chance but he blew it away. Seasoned cueist Geet Sethi from Gujarat had to bring out his best and add a good nerve to add to his prowess in cueing classically to snatch it away from veteran,Ahsan -ul-Haque from Orissa by 44-73,42-61,76-13,57-14 and 71-20 points.

Alok Kumar of Punjab was another winner of the day when he defeated Sumit Talwar of Chandigarh. Former Asian snooker champion continued his fine run drubbing the young PSPB player Shravan Mohta in straight frames by 83-35,121-09 and 70-56 points. Railway cueist Girish who belongs to Chennai beat his city mate,young Dilip Kumar in straight frames by 107-42,61-20 and 74-58 points in a match which saw him in a fluent mood,potting and positioning the cue ball in a meticulous fashion in the process of outclassing the youngster. Girish had earlier defeated his city mate,Rafath Habib. Girish with his latest win now leads his group to qualify for the last 16 knock-out stage of the senior snooker event. Star cueist of the host state,Kan Kan Shamsi was also another qualifier with a creditable win over Assam’s Himanshu Sharma. Kan Kan had lost to Yasin Merchant after having taken the first frame on Tuesday. On Wednesday,after going down in the first frame he made a comeback to take the next two for a 2-1 lead. Yet it was a good decider black by Kan Kan which actually won him the match to join Girish in the last 16. In another important result,Shivam Arora of Bihar caused a flutter of sorts by defeating Rafath Habib of the Railways by 49-84,69-64,64-04,56-63 and 78-35 points.