Advani, Parikh, Bhaskar and Sitwala through to National Billiards Semi-finals

In the Quarter Finals, Pankaj Advani (PSPB) beat Brijesh Damani (PSPB) 4-1 in a high-quality encounter. Advani was gracious in victory, terming Damani “tactically very sound and very dangerous in the shorter format.”

Pankaj Advani won the first frame convincingly. In the second frame, he made a break of 142 but missed a sitter cannon. Brijesh Damani capitalized and snatched the frame to level the score 1-1. In the vital third frame, Pankaj made sure that he did not give any chance to Brijesh and sealed the frame with an unfinished break of 146. There was no looking back for the 12-time World Champion after that and he scored century breaks in both the remaining frames to claim his place in the Semis.

In another quarter-final, B. Bhaskar of Karnataka proved his class with fluent wins in four straight frames over Jaiveer Dhingra of Maharashtra, while scoring three century breaks.

Earlier, in the Pre-Quarter Finals, Dhvaj Haria (PSPB) caused a huge upset beating Sourav Kothari (PSPB) 3-1, while in the other notable upsets, Siddharth Parikh (RSPB) beat Alok Kumar (PSPB) 3-2 and Jaiveer Dhingra (MAH) beat Ashok Shandilya (RSPB) 3-1.

In the match against Sourav, Dhvaj had two breaks of 137 and 110 in first and third games and though Sourav could do better in the fourth game to set up the decider, he fell short by 9 points and lost the battle to the former Junior champion, Dhvaj Haria.

Last year's runner-up, Alok Kumar (PSPB) also lost the battle of the last 16 against Siddharth Parikh of Railways 2-3. Both the cueists won alternate frames but Siddharth controlled the decider and made an unfinished break of 150 points to move in quarter-finals.

Maharashtrian lad Jaiveer Dhingra overcame Ashok Shandilya of Railways 3-1.

Scores:

Quarter finals

Pankaj Advani (PSPB) beat Brijesh Damani (PSPB) 4-1

151(75, 69*)-8,146(142)-150(84), 150(146*)-5, 150(117)-43, 152(118*)-139(74)

“*” MEANS UNFINISHED BREAKS

B. Bhaskar (KTK) beat Jaiveer Dhingra (MAH) 4-0

150 (118)-101, 150(102)-88, 150(71)-11,150(116)-36

Siddharth Parikh (RSPB) beat Dhvaj Haria (PSPB) 4-3

54-150(138), 150(80)-83, 150(69)-70,59-150,48-151(114), 150(55)-88(63), 150(50)-63

Dhruv Sitwala (PSPB) beat Rupesh Shah (PSPB) 4-1

62(57)-151(64), 151(147)-14, 150(111)-130(107),150(125)-10,150(61)-110(91)

Pre-Quarter-finals

Pankaj Advani (PSPB) beat Manish Jain (WB) 3-0

150(99)-8, 151(151)-0, 151(142)-11

Dhvaj Haria (PSPB) beat Sourav Kothari (PSPB) 3-1

150 (137)-7, 4-152(148), 151(110)-0, 150(65)-141(88)

Rupesh Shah (PSPB) beat Nikhil Ghadge (RSPB) 3-0

150(140)-64, 150 (93,51)-17, 150 (150)-0

Dhruv Sitwala (PSPB) beat Rafath Habib (RSPB) 3-1

150(120)-121(80), 150(90)-98, 150(58, 92)-06

Siddharth Parikh (RSPB) beat Alok Kumar (PSPB) 3-2

151(82)-8, 105-150,150-110,12-150(91), 150(150)-5

Brijesh Damani (PSPB) beat Devendra Joshi (PSPB) 3-2

75(51)-151,151(78)-113(51),151(65)-29,119-150(86),151(51)-27

B. Bhaskar (KTK) beat Vishal Madan (MAH) 3-1

86-151(80, 150(57)-76, 151(55,81)-136(67), 152(63,37)-87(52)

Jaiveer Dhingra (MAH) beat Ashok Shandilya (RSPB) 3-1

150-141, 150-41, 51-150, 150-106