Advani easily beat Jin Long of China 4-1 while Merchant edged past Hong Kong's Chi Wai Au 4-3 in the World snooker championships.
In the women's section, Anuja Thakur created a flutter by advancing to the semi-finals in her maiden appearance at the World Snooker championship.
They shocked Pankaj Advani and Ashok Shandilya respectively in the CCI snooker tournament.
Yasin Merchant will take on Alok Kumar in the other semi-final tomorrow to decide the second participant for the championship.
The other members of the team are Sourav Kothari of Kolkata and Aditya Mehta of Mumbai.
The world billiards champion says seventy-five per cent of his game in billiards is because of snooker.
Meanwhile, Sourav Kothari has won only two of his six matches and has very slim chances of advancing to the next stage.
The National Snooker champion beat compatriot Pankaj Advani 6-3 to win the Asian Snooker Championship.
Afer winning the points format title, the 19-year old Indian ace beat Geet Sethi in the final of the time format event.
In the semi-finals, Advani upset top seed Robby Foldvari of Australia while Joshi blanked Joe Grech.
Led by Asian champion Pankaj Advani and former champion Geet Sethi all the Indians reached the last 16 stage in the IBSF World Billiards championship.
The tournament, to be held from June 17 to 20, will carry Rs 300,000 in prize-money.
The seven-time World champion lost to Thailand's C Praput while defending champion Devendra Joshi was beaten by Pankaj Advani in the Asian Billiards Championship.
TOP Scheme shows how sport treated unequally in India, says Pankaj Advani.
Leander Paes... Sania Mirza... Pankaj Advani.. Saina Nehwal... Ravichandran Ashwin... Anirban Lahiri... Vijender Singh... Who is India's Sportsperson of 2015?
Pankaj Advani led with back-to-back wins as Indian cueists had a field day in the IBSF World Snooker championships.
However, National champion Manan Chandran was taken the distance by Ben Farnworth of New Zealand in the World snooker championships.
Former national champion Alok Kumar also stayed on course for a place in the knock-out round atthe World Snooker championships.
Yasin Merchant, Pankaj Advani and Alok Kumar posted easy victories on day 3 of the World snooker championship.
The Indian challenge in the World Under-21 Snooker Championship ended with the former losing in the pre-quarters and the latter in the quarter-finals.
The defending champion blanked John Loh Ei Loong of Malaysia to stay on course for a clean sweep in Group D in the World Under-21 snooker championship.
The Indian cueist's showing earned him the top seeding in the knock-out round in the world under-21 snooker championship.
But Aditya Mehta and Sourav Kothari lost in the preliminary rounds in the Under-21 World Snooker championships.
But former champion Yasin Merchant failed to make it, losing in the quarter-finals, in the Asian Snooker Championship.
Pankaj Advani, Aditya Mehta and Sourav Kothari won their matches in the under-21 World snooker championship.
Pakistan won the inaugural Peace Cup snooker series 43-33.
The 18-year-old cueist put together two unfinished breaks of 150 as he rallied past the veteran cueist to make the knock-out round in the World billiards championship.
The ace Indian cueist beat John Hartely of England in the opening match of the World Billiards Championship.
BSFI president P N Roy said Advani's World Championship win will encourage youngsters to take to snooker in greater numbers.
Aditya Mehta set up a mouth-watering quarter-final against compatriot Pankaj Advani after ending the challenge of double World champion Mark Williams in the Indian Open snooker tournament in Delhi on Thursday. Mehta became only the second Indian cueist, after Advani, to reach the quarter-final of a world ranking snooker event with a 4-2 victory over the world No 18.
They scored narrow victories over Ding Junhui and Mark Allen respectively in the semis of the World under-21 snooker championship.
The Indian champion went down to Australian professional Neil Robertson in the quarter-finals of the World Under-21 snooker championship
World champion Advani beat Jessada Posukarn of Thailand 5-0 while Mehta shocked eighth seed Mark Allen of Northern Ireland 5-4 in the World under-21 snooker championship.
The Indian champion overcame a late challenge from Tian Pengfei of China to make the grade in the World Under-21 snooker championship.
From Neeraj Chopra to Harbhajan Singh to Saina Mirza, India's top sportsperson mourned the passing away of one of the country's biggest sporting icons.
Billiards and snooker launched an unexpected bid to win a spot on the Tokyo 2020 Olympics sports programme, saying sharp global rise in popularity helped their case.
India's leading cueists, Pankaj Advani and Aditya Mehta, bowed out of the third European Players Tour Championship (PTC) of the season -- the Bluebell Wood Open -- after suffering defeats in their respective round matches at the Doncaster Dome in Sheffield.
Eight-time World champion Pankaj Advani continued his fine run to enter the pre-quarter-finals of the third European Players Tour Championship (PTC) of the season, the Bluebell Wood Open, being held at Doncaster Dome, in Sheffield.
A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Wednesday
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