World Snooker: Advani advances, Chawla exits

Pankaj Advani and Manan Chandra stormed into the last-32 stage, even as Kamal Chawla crashed out, in the Seaways IBSF World Snooker Championships, at the Sree Kanteerava Indoor Stadium, in Bengaluru, on Wednesday.

Advani, the 2003 World champion, prevailed over young Tomasz Skalski of Belgium 4-2, but not before facing the threat of being knocked out of the tournament.

Skalski surprised the Indian ace, a hot favourite for the title, by winning the first two frames 81-49 and 47-37, but the 12-time World title holder bounced back by winning the next four games on the trot.

"What's good about Advani is his composure when things are not going his way. I have seen many players giving up in such situations, but Pankaj is made of different mettle; he revels in crisis and he did yet again," Sree, Advani's brother and sports psychologist, said.

The most impressive of the Indians was Chandra, who routed last year's runner-up, Muhammad Asif of Pakistan, 4-2.

Chandra won the first two frames 71-6, 67-41, but could not continue in the same vein when he seemed all set to pocket the match.

The Pakistani roared back to reduce the deficit to 1-2, winning the third frame 85-28 before the Indian claimed the fifth 67-12 to make the scorline 3-2.

He then kept his composure and produced an unblemished display to snooker win the sixth frame 95-0 and dash the Pakistani’s hopes of progressing.

Adrian Ridley of Australia forced Madhya Pradesh cueist Chawla to bite the dust with a 4-3 victory.

Chawla had a 3-0 lead but Ridley rallied from the brink to bag the next four frames with breaks of 42 in the sixth and 46 in the decider.

2013 runner-up Zhao Xintong of China had breaks of 81 and 83 en route to a 4-0 win over Antonis Poullos of Cyprus while Jamie Clarke of Wales produced the highest break of 133 in his 4-1 win over Farhan Mirza of Sweden.