Geet Sethi and Pankaj Advani eased past their quarterfinal encounters, and will face each other in an intriguing semifinal of the men's billiards event at the Hash10 World Sim Nationals on Friday.Pankaj Advani accounted for giant-killer Venkatesam, while Geet Sethi beat Rupesh Shah.
Earlier in the pre-quarterfinals, Alok Kumar was knocked out by Railways' Venkatesam, as the defending champion lost a tightly contested best-of-five frame pre-quarterfinal 3-2 (151-30, 90-152, 151-93, 29-150, 151-26).
Alok Kumar twice made up the deficit of a frame, taking the contest to a decider, but Venkatesam prevailed 151-26 rather comfortably in the fifth frame to make it to the last eight.
Dhruv Sitwala escaped defeat in spectacular fashion, storming the fifth frame with an unfinished break of 151 against Siddharth Pareikh.
Sourav Kothari found himself two frames down against Ashok Shandilya, but rallied to level the game at two frames apiece, assisted by an unfinished break of 150 in the fourth frame. Shandilya, however, moved into the quarters with a 151-100 win in the final frame.
Geet Sethi, Pankaj Advani, Rupesh Shah, Bhaskar and Devendra Joshi completed the last-eight line up.
Mundir Sherazi and Malkeet Singh, the winner and the runner-up at the last year's junior billiards nationals respectively, started off on the wrong foot, suffering losses in their opening games in the semifinal league of the junior snooker event. Dhvaj Haria, looking to add to his sub-junior billiards title triumph earlier in the tournament, got the better of Mundir with an 830-725 win.
In the other match, Ustav Ramani's percentage play handed him the advantage and, despite Malkeet Singh hitting back with a late break of 82, managed to hold on in his 771-660 win.
The results: Men: Billiards: Quarterfinals (best of seven frames, 150up): Geet Sethi (Guj) bt Rupesh Shah (PSPB) 152-133, 151-98, 150-33, 151-131; Dhruv Sitwala (PSPB) bt Ashok Shandilya (Rly) 42-150, 150-51, 151-50, 151-2, 150-47; Pankaj Advani (PSPB) bt K. Venkatesam (Rly) 150-2, 150- 95, 153-121, 150-57.
Men's senior billiards: Pre-quarterfinals (best-of-five frames, 150up): Dhurv (PSPB) bt Siddharth Pareikh (Rly) 147-151, 150-32, 88-152, 151-96, 151-33; Rupesh (PSPB) bt Shakeel Ahmed (WB) 150-51, 150-135, 151-131; Ashok (Rly) bt Sourav Kothari (PSPB) 151-41, 152-34, 21-151, 2-150, 151-100; B. Bhaskar (Kar) bt Shankar Rao (AP) 150-105, 152-120, 151-71; Sethi (Guj) bt Arun Agarwal (Mah) 150-26, 153-54, 150-59; Pankaj (PSPB) bt Shyam Jagtiani (Rly) 152-29, 152-28, 151-130; Devendra Joshi (Mah) bt Prem Prakash (TN) 152-87, 150-71, 150-36; Venkatesam (Rly) bt Alok Kumar (PSPB) 151-30, 90-152, 151-93, 29-150, 151-26.
Group A: I.V. Rajiv (AP) bt Jay Shankar (Jha) 102-41, 100-21, 101-60; Pankaj Advani bt Prem Prakash 100-52, 100-31, 100-43; Vishal Madan (Mah) bt M.S. Reddy (AP) 101-84, 102-88, 100-98. Group B: Shankar Rao bt Ustav Ramani (Guj) 66-101, 101-42, 102-20, 100-72; Nitin Kohli (UP) bt Anshul Mittal (Har) 100-51, 101-36, 100-82; Alok Kumar bt Simhachallam (Rly) 102-24, 101-40, 101-73. Group C: Ketan Chawla (MP) bt Saket Saurab (Bih) 102-45, 102-34, 102-91; Geet Sethi bt D. Rajkumar (Kar) 102-34, 101-67, 67-100, 100-16; Siddarth Pariekh bt D. Bhuvaneshwaran (TN) 100-56, 100-67, 100-52. Group D: Arif Akthar (Chn) bt Subarat Das (Ori) 100-31, 102-86, 101-47; Akram Khan (WB) w/o Abineet Sharma (MP); Dhruv Sitwala bt Arun Agarwal 11-101, 100-0, 35-100, 101-89, 100-13. Group E: Aditya Agarwal (Rly) bt Shivam Arora (Bih) 101-70, 73-100, 102-30, 69-101, 102-85; Kankan Shamsi (UP) bt Abhishek Saini (Har) 101-41, 101-66, 100-74; Ashok Shandilya bt Shakeel Ahmed (WB) 100-33, 102-56, 101-48; Rupesh Shah bt Sourav Kothari 24-101, 102-81, 61-101, 101-11, 101-8. Group F: S.A. Saleem (TN) bt Mahesh Jagdule (Mah) 100-57, 45-102, 100-94, 101-11; Amit Sharma (Del) bt Kunal Manchanda (Raj) 72-101, 102-65, 101-19, 101-45. Group G: B. Bhaskar (Kar) bt K. Venkatesam (Rly) 101-4, 101-10, 35-100, 101-79; Varun Madan (Del) bt M.C. Manoj (TN) 101-78, 79-101, 102-47; I.H. Manu Dev w/o Jayanth Megahani (Raj). Group H: Manish Jain (WB) bt Amit Lath (Ori) 100-24, 100-23, 102-40; Devendra Joshi bt Shyam Jagtiani 100-63, 100-93, 100-53; Durga Prasad (Rly) bt Amit 91-101, 102-75, 100-52, 100-35; Manish Jain (WB) bt Dhvaj Haria (Guj) 100-34, 100-26, 101-30.
Boys' Junior snooker: Semifinal league (two-hour time format): Dhvaj Haria (Guj) bt Mundir Sherazi (Kar) 830-725; Ustav Ramani (Guj) bt Malkeet Singh (UP) 771-660.
