World Snooker C'ship: Advani storms into knockout stage

India's [ Images ] Pankaj Advani [ Images ] faced few problems in defeating Finland's Antti Silvo 4-1 in a Group D tie to storm into the knockout stages of the IBSF World Snooker Championship in Bangalore on Wednesday.

Opening the match with a century plus break, seven-time world champion Advani outplayed Silvo 120-3 47-67 75-5 65-17 74-67 to move into the knockout stage which starts with the round of 32.

Earlier, in another league tie, Advani stamped his class when he crushed Polish rival Marcin Nitschke 101-1 61-23 100-3 and 108-23.

Another top Indian cueist, Yasin Merchant, is on the threshold of booking his berth in the knockout stage, though he went down to England's [ Images ] Martin O'Donnel 3-4 in a see-saw duel.

He lost 12-73 29-56 66-54 77-1 66-4 38-77 24-80.

Merchant has to defeat Syria's Omar Alkojah, who has had a mixed tournament so far, to advance. Alkojah, beaten by Martin 4-2 on Monday, bounced back on Tuesday to defeat Sweden's Bairaq Al-Urfy 4-1.

In a hard-fought group E tie, India's Alok Kumar rallied after losing the first frame against Canada's [ Images ] Jason Williams to score his second win in three matches.

In other matches, Junior National Champion Lalrina Renthlei pulled off his first win of the tournament beating France's [ Images ] Gregory Kopec 70-25 55-67 43-67 76-53 47-39 1-77 74-22 in group F, while compatriot I H Manudev lost to Iran's Hossein Vafaei Ayouri 32-72 11-76 42-73 and 0-77 in a group G tie.

Anuj Uppal of India lost to Ireland's Rodney Goggins 37-80 63-33 11-55 16-81 14-75.

Compiling 141, Saleh Mohammad of Afghanistan defeated Rusia's Vladimir Bykov 4-0.

In the morning session, Manan Chandra lost to Kevin Van Hove of Belgium 14-65 21-71 48-57 77-27 54-66 23-70.

But Kamal Chawla and Brijesh Damani provided the Indian fans a reason to cheer when they defeated Joris Maas of The Netherlands and Craig Macgillivray of Scotland respectively.

Playing his group P encoutner, Chawla notched up his second win thrashing Maas 79-15 67-53 55-64 52-47 70-60. In Group L, Damani beat Craig 79-47 60-45 3-116 76-10 47-76 50-60 93-00.

Hong Kong's Au Chi Wai beat India's Neeraj Kumar 6-62 82-2 5-83(69) 66-30 74-32 121-03.

Brendan O'Donoghue of Ireland comfortably defeated Toh Chee Keong of Singapore 4-0 while Australia's [ Images ] Vinnie Calabrese breezed past Germany's [ Images ] Karl Heinz Beggel 4-1.