Merchant-Advani make last four

Yasin Merchant and Pankaj Advani swamped Devendra Joshi and Aditya Mehta 413-212 in their last round-robin league encounter to become the only Indian team to reach the semi-final stage in the Reid and Taylor Bombay Gymkhana InstaSnooker 2005 at the Bombay Gymkhana in Mumbai on Thursday.

After eight league encounters, Merchant and Advani tallied 2809 points to ensure their qualification. Thailand and China had already assured themselves a place in the last four after seven matches itself, with 2592 and 2399 points respectively.

The last slot up for grabs and the fight is between the UAE team, and the Indian duo of Alok Kumar and Mana Chandra.

Alok and Manan routed Rupesh Shah and Neeraj Kumar in the last encounter 368-210 to total 2362 points. The UAE team will have to score 188 points in their concluding league encounter against the Chinese duo to earn the right to play in the semi-finals.

The star of the day was easily Yasin Merchant, the former Asian champion, compiling two fluid century breaks. In their 407-223 victory over Geet Sethi and Omar Balsara, Yasin had a break of 101 in the second frame.

His effort was complimented by Advani, who had breaks of 71 and 66 in the first and fourth frames.

Yasin's coup de grace, however, came in the fourth frame of the match against Joshi and Mehta, his clearance of 131 drawing huge applause from the crowd and taking the wind out of the opponent's sails.

Day's results:

Neeraj Kumar & Rupesh Shah (India) 290 (42, 20, 72, 86, 70) bt Geet Sethi & Omar Balsara (India) 271 (63, 96, 46, 22, 44); Mohammad Joker & Mohammad Shehab (UAE) 338 (68, 44, 99, 47, 80) bt Pankaj Advani & Yasin Merchant (India) 314 (51, 70, 63, 79, 51); Mohammad Yousuf & Saleh Mohammad (Pakistan) 320 (80, 48, 56, 40, 96) bt Alok Kumar & Manan Chandra (India) 274 (46, 68, 43, 86, 31); Kobkit Palajin & Nitiwat Kanjanasri (Thailand) 345 (23, 62, 45, 130, 85) bt Jin Long & Tian Pengfei (China) 295 (109, 51, 80, 7, 48); Pankaj Advani & Yasin Merchant (India) 407 (106, 114,64, 67, 56) bt Geet Sethi & Omar Balsara (India) 223 (16, 14, 55, 61, 77); Davendra Joshi & Aditya Mehta (India) 413 (74, 68, 48, 92, 131) bt Neeraj Kumar & Rupesh Shah (India) 201 (37, 66, 67, 31, 0); Kobkit Palajin & Nitiwat Kanjanasri (Thailand) 373 (14, 105, 83, 75, 96) bt Mohammad Joker & Mohamm d Shehab (UAE) 219 (64, 23, 49, 47, 36); Jin Long & Tian Pengfei (China) 301 (69, 51, 102, 65, 14) bt Mohammad Yousuf & Saleh Mo ammad (Pakistan) 299 (34, 68, 17, 64, 116); Pankaj Advani & Yasin Merchant (India) 413 (77, 60, 131, 74, 71) bt Devendra Joshi & Aditya Gupta (India) 212 (55, 68, 10, 47, 32); Alok Kumar & Manan Chandra (India) 368 (84, 114, 48, 39, 83) bt Neeraj Kumar & Rupesh Shsh (India) 210 (31, 24, 67, 64, 24).