Khandelwal are top qualifiers

Also making the grade narrowly was Sunil Macchar, who managed to grab the eighth slot with 161 VPs. Before the last round Macchar8217;s were in 11th spot, but they scored 17 and scraped through. First day leaders Tolani, winners of theSummer Nationals, finished in fifth place with 165. The quarter-finals will be played over two sets of 14 boards and is a knock-out. The first prize is Rs one lakh.

Following are the qualifiers: Khandelwal Tubes 172 R Khandelwal, JM Shah, J Solani, Kalpana Misra, Anil Padhye, N Rajmohan; Indian Railways A 171 S Bhattacharjee, Manas Mukkherjee, S Roy, S Bhattacharjee, A Banerjee; Podar 166 Deepak Podar, S Vaidya, S Agarwal, V Agarwal, Jimmy Mehta, B Ukidve; Ingersoll Rand 166 V Phatarphekar, PG Hegde, P Dalvi, K Samant, A Chakradeo; Tolani 165 R Agrawal, G Biswas, B Pradhan, A Bapat, A Vaidya; Puria 165 BN Parasrampuria, Anil Tikare, P Dalvi, S Deshpande, A Arundekar.