Pankaj Advani enters World Snooker pre-quarters

BENGALURU: Maintaining his winning streak, Indian ace Pankaj Advani along with other Indian cueists advanced into the pre-quarterfinals of the ongoing Seaways IBSF World Snooker Championship at Kanteerava Stadium, here today.

Advani outplayed compatriot Laxman Rawat 5-2. The tournament favourite began with a huge break of 126 and Rawat found him tough to match. Though he picked up two frames, the Advani was always in control and will meet Englishman Ryan Causton in the next round.

Other Indians, Manan Chandra, who beat Nick Jennings of England 5-3, Shivram Arora (5-3 beat Lee Chun Wai of Hong Kong), Brijesh Damani (5-3 beat Mohamed Shehab of UAE), Lucky Vatvani (5-2 beat Jamie Clarke of Welsh) and Varun Madande (5-1 beat Soheil Vahedi of Iran) stormed into the next stage without any difficulty.

Apart from Rawat, Sundeep Gulati, who was beaten by Australia's Adrian Ridley 4-5, was the other Indian cueist who could not advance.

On the international front, the Chinese made their presence felt with impressive showing on the green baize.

The 2013 runner-up Zhao Xintong and the 14-year-old prodigy Yan Bingtao recorded comfortable victories to storm into the last-16 of the men's section.

Australia's Matthew Bolton too served notice to the title-aspirants by recording the only 5-0 result of the last-32 games as he got past Chi Wai Au of Hong Kong.

Zhao Xintong downed Brazilian Fabio Anderson Luersen 5-3, while Bingtao had the better of the impressive Welshman Gareth Allen.

Gareth had taken a 2-0 lead with a 134 break but it wasn't his day. A break of 89 was the highest that Bingtao managed but his safety play and refusal to provide openings had Gareth in a spot most often and the young Chinese pulled it off in style.