Dhvaj Haria, Mundir Sherazi, Ustav Ramani and Malkeet Singh made it to the semifinal league of the junior boys' billiards championship, at the Hash10-World Sim Nationals here on Thursday.
Dhvaj, the only semifinalist who managed to score over 500 in the pre-quarters, knocked out Karnataka's M.L. Laxman 677-404 in one of the more fluent displays of the quarterfinal stage.
Ustav Ramani just about pipped Ketan Chawla 492-486 in the two-hour time format contest while Malkeet Singh enjoyed a more comfortable 408-285 win over Kabil Badami. Mundir completed the semifinal line-up with a 466-384 defeat of Himanshu Jain in the last quarterfinal encounter.
The semifinal league stage will see the four participants play each other once, for a total of six matches spread over Friday and Saturday.
Alok Kumar bounced back from his loss on Wednesday to win both his matches of the day, in the group stage of the senior billiards division. With four players qualifying from a group, most of the bigwigs were assured of progress.
Geet Sethi, Pankaj Advani, Dhruv Sitwala, Sourav Kothari, Rupesh Shah, Ashok Shandilya and Devendra Joshi also won two group stage contests on Thursday and are sitting pretty in their respective groups.
The results: Billiards: Men: Group Stages (best-of-five frames, 100up): Group A: Pankaj Advani (PSPB) bt Jay Shankar Shaw (Jha) 101-10, 101-2, 100-35; Vishal Madan (Mah) bt I.V. Rajeev (AP) 101-39, 101-44, 101-51; Prem Prakash (TN) bt M.S. Reddy (AP) 102-89, 71-101, 100-58, 100-46; Prem Prakash bt Vishal Madan 100-74, 100-94, 100-55; M.S. Reddy bt Jay Shankar Shaw 100-53, 104-28, 103-44; Pankaj Advani bt I.V. Rajiv 100-47, 101-51, 100-45.
Group B: Nithin Kohli (UP) bt Shankar Rao (AP) 100-60, 93-100, 100-75, 101-64; Simhachallam (Rly) bt Ustav Ramani (Guj) 101-33, 101-34, 103-57; Alok Kumar (PSPB) bt Anshul Mittal (Har) 101-4, 101-12, 102-37; Shankar Rao bt Simhachallam 101-23, 101-29, 34-100, 101-27; Ustav Ramani bt Anshul Mittal 100-72, 102-71, 100-32; Alok Kumar bt Nitin Kohli 102-39, 100-5, 100-45.
Group C: Siddarth Pareikh (Rly) bt Raj Kumar (Kar) 100-0, 95-103, 100-17, 101-86; Geet Sethi (Guj) bt Ketan Chawla (MP) 100-24, 101-0, 101-39; Bhuvaneshwaran (TN) bt Saketh Sourabh (Bih) 101-11, 102-12, 101-72; Siddarth Pareikh bt Ketan Chawla 100-41, 84-102, 100-0, 67-100, 102-48; Raj Kumar bt Bhuvaneshwaran 73-101, 100-99, 15-100, 101-46, 100-65; Geet Sethi bt Saket Sourabh 100-5, 102-28, 100-61.
Group D: Dhruv Sitwala (PSPB) bt Subrat Das (Ori) 101-10, 101-72, 100-47; Arun Agarwal (Mah) bt Abhineet Sharma (MP) 100-26, 91-105, 100-43, 100-25; Akram Khan (Chd) bt Arif Akthar (Chd) 69-100, 100-55, 100-60, 101-13; Abhineet Sharma bt Subrat Das 100-56, 101-74, 100-77.
Group E: Sourav Kothari (PSPB) bt Shivam Arora (Bih) 101-38, 101-15, 101-4; Aditya Agarwal (Rly) bt Kankan Shamsi 82-103, 100-72, 101-97, 103-7; Rupesh Shah (PSPB) bt Abhishek Saini (Har) 100-5, 100-15, 100-14; Rupesh Shah bt Kankan Shamsi 101-13, 101-60, 100-35; Sourav Kothari bt Aditya Agarwal 100-67, 100-12, 100-85; Shivam Arora bt Abishek Saini 100-91, 100-60, 100-30.
Group F: Manish Jagdale (Mah) bt Shakeel Ahmed (WB) 69-102, 101-99, 102-82, 100-51; Ashok Shandilya (Rly) bt Kunal Manchanda (Raj) 101-17, 101-28, 101-31; Ashok Shandilya bt Mahesh Jagdale (Mah) 100-48, 5-101, 100-0, 100-50; Shakeel Ahmed bt Amit Sharma (Del) 101-26, 100-21, 100-21; S.A. Saleem (TN) bt Kunal Manchanda 101-29, 102-27, 100-47; Shakeel Ahmed bt Kunal Manchanda 101-61, 100-25, 101-36.
Group G: B. Bhaskar (Kar) bt I.H. Manu Dev (Kar) 101-56, 100-31, 100-21; K. Venkatesam (Rly) bt M.C. Manoj 100-33, 100-66, 100-99; Bhaskar bt Manoj 101-35, 101-63, 101-20; Manu Dev bt Varun Madan (Del) 100-31, 102-9, 102-18; K. Venkatesam bt Varun Madan 102-83, 102-37, 63-101, 101-88; Bhaskar bt Varun Madan 100-6, 101-33, 102-7.
Group H: Dhvaj Haria (Guj) bt Amit Lath (Ori) 100-61, 100-82, 100-73; Devendra Joshi (PSPB) bt Manish Jain (WB) 85-102, 75-101, 101-12, 101-73, 100-62; Shyam Jagtiani (WB) bt Durga Prasad (Rly) 72-100, 41-100, 101-86, 100-42, 101-83; Shyam Jagtiani bt Manish Jain 101-61, 100-57, 103-16; Devendra Joshi bt Amit Lath 101-42, 100-36, 100-47; Durga Prasad bt Dhvaj Haria 103-28, 100-66, 6-104, 100-17.
Junior boys: Quarterfinals (two-hour time format): Mundir Sherazi (Kar) bt Himanshu Jain (Kar) 466-384; Ustav Ramani (Guj) bt Ketan Chawla (MP) 492-486; Malkeet Singh (UP) bt Kabil Badami (Mah) 408-285; Dhvaj Haria bt M.L. Lakshman (Kar) 677-404.
Pre-quarterfinals: Lakshman bt Ashutosh Padhy (Ori) 492-281; Himanshu Jain bt Anmoldeep Singh (Pun) 411-365; Ketan Chawla bt B. Jagadesh (TN) 599-369; Ustav Ramani bt Ishpreet Singh (Mah) 559-386; Dhvaj bt Shri Krishna (TN) 626-301; Kabil Badami bt Laxman Rawat (Har) 384-331; Malkeet Singh bt Abhishek Saini (Har) 391-248; Mundir w/o Debayan Laha (WB).
