Advani advances to knockouts of Asian 6 Reds Snooker C'ship

Continuing his winning streak, Pankaj Advani secured passage into the knockout stage of the Asian 6 Reds Snooker Championship by beating Khaled Alastal 5-0 in his third group match in Abu Dhabi on Friday.

Winning 20 frames out of a possible 25 in four group matches and losing only three frames, Advani secured breaks of 75, 74, 57 and 47 in his four group matches.

His first group match was against Nezar Aseeri of Saudi Arabia. Pankaj cruised to a 5-0 win against him, winning 53-6, 29-26, 55-16, 30-15, 57-0. His second group match was another clean 5-0 win (78-0, 37-30, 41-5, 57-1, 75-0), this time against his local opponent Bader Obaidi Almehairi.

In his third match, another 5-0 (47-22, 51-12, 55-11, 36-1, 34-18) win against Khaled Alastal of Palestine saw him secure his spot in the knockout stage. After three straight forward wins without losing any frames, it took the final group match for his opponents to win frames against him.

The fourth group match saw Alijalil Ali from Iraq win three frames despite losing the match 5-3 (17-41, 0-57, 32-1, 3-37, 46-19, 38-25, 34-19) to Pankaj.