Manan Chandra well placed to enter knockout stage

MALTA, OCTOBER 21: Manan Chandra with five wins in six matches is well placed to make the knock-out stage in the World Under-21 snooker championships here. Two other Indians, Rishabh Thukral of delhi and Omar Balsara have four wins and two losses in six matches and have a good chance of making it to the next stage of last 32, which is when the knock-out stage begins.

Manan, who is one of the Asian Games probables scored a fine win over Ben Farnsworth of New Zealand, a quarter-finalist last year and seeded in this tournament. Manan won 4-3. In another league match, Manan rallied from a 0-3 deficit to win the next four frames in a row to win 4-3 against David Cortis of Malta. Manan was hampered by a broken cue tip, which was fixed in between two frames in the 15-minute interval that is allowed.

Manan8217;s sole loss has been agaiinst Robert Murphy of Ireland and he is next slated to play Fung Kwok Wai of Belgium, who also has five wins and one loss.Thukral had a good win over Brian Salmon of UK 4-1 in one ofthe group matches and his last match is against Benjamin Schreck of Austria. Balsara has four wins and two losses and he is due to play against Philip Cianter of Malta.