Mumbai: Indias top-ranked cueist Pankaj Advani of ONGC Sunday enjoyed a smooth passage to the semi-finals as he cruised past home challenger Mukund Bharadia 5-0 in a best-of-9-frame quarter-final match of the CCI All India Open Snooker Championship.
Advani, winner of multiple world championship gold medals, showed a lot of fluency with his pots and was in complete control against the Cricket Club of India and Maharashtras second ranked player Bharadia. Advani started with a break of 53 in the first frame and then signed off with a 85 in the fifth to complete a 62-10, 71-34, 66-16, 68-42 and 85-7 victory.
On the adjacent table, Indias second ranked cueist Laxman Rawat of Indian Oil, was in cracking form and constructed two century breaks, 105 in the second frame and 108 in the fifth to waltz to a 5-1 win against Varun Madan of Delhi in another last eight encounter.
Rawat showed great character and superb touch and control as he neatly stitched together those two substantial efforts to race towards a 58-79, 105-0, 51-11, 64-41, 108-7 and 56-48 success. Earlier,Bharadia caused a major flutter as he sent defending champion Brijesh Damani of Indian Oil crashing out.
Bharadia quashed the aspirations of the Kolkata-based Damani by snatching a nerve-wracking 4-3 victoryin the best-of-7-frame round of 16 match. Playing in familiar surroundings on his home tables Bharadia with some bold and gutsy play clinched a 22-82, 24-56, 69-24, 74-48, 65-21, 55-67 and 47-38 victory.
Advani in his last 16 match encountered initial resistance from Anurag Giri of Madhya Pradesh before posting a 4-2 (99-33, 36-103, 44-65, 62-54, 95-25 and 89-13) win. In other last 16 matches, India number two Rawat and number three Aditya Mehta both recorded convincing victories to ease into the quarter-finals.
Rawat got the better of Manan Chandra (BPCL) 4-2 (62-34, 35-74, 65-25, 36-95, 75-39, 68-7), while Mehta (ONGC) tamed R Girish of (Railways) 4-1 (1-88(69), 79(57)-42, 91(91)-23, 73(68)-1, 62(43)-24). Mehta fired in four breaks of 57 (2ndframe), 91 (3rd) and 68 (4th) to complete his win.
Results: A Giri (MP) bt Y Merchant (Mum) 4-1; L Vatnani (Tel) bt S Perwani (Mum) 4-3; A Mehta (ONGC) bt A Kumar (Del) 4-0; H Jain (Tel) bt M Choudhry (Del) 4-1; V Madan (Del) bt E Panduranga (Rlys) 4-2; P Advani (ONGC) bt A Giri (MP) 4-2; M Bharadia (Mum) bt B Damani (Indian OIl) 4-3; M Singh (Rlys) bt S Dilip Kumar (Railways) 4-3; I S Chadha (Mum) bt Lucky Vatnani (Tel) 4-3.
