Sethi beaten, easy for Advani

It was a day of mixed fortunes for Indian cueists as Geet Sethi was beaten by Clive Thomson (New Zealand) while star attraction Pankaj Advani and veteran Yasin Merchant maintained their winning streaks in the IBSF World Snooker Championship in Hyderabad on Tuesday.

In the Masters section, Sethi waged a grim battle before going down 2-3 to Thomson in a Group B round-robin clash.

Having lost the first two frames 42-50, 48-53, Sethi rallied to draw parity by winning the next two frames but Thomson prevailed in the decider, winning it 89-6.

Pankaj Advani staved off a stiff challenge from Phillip Williams of Wales to carve out a 4-3 win, his third straight triumph in Group A.

The baby-faced Indian cueist went 3-1 up before his opponent won the next two frames and an alert Advani pocketed the fifth frame 54-16 to maintain a clean slate in Group A.

In Group C, Merchant trounced American Ahmed Aly 4-2 for his third straight win.

In Group D, Manan Chandra had a field day against Austrian Alexander Gauss, blanking him 4-0.

Among other Indians in the men's section, Sandeep Gulati routed Ali Obaidly of Qatar 4-0, Shahbaz Khan spanked Pierre Jordaan of South Africa 4-1 and Brijesh Damani thumped Leonard Shanahan of Ireland 4-1.

In the Masters section, K Venkatesham beat fellow-Indian Arvind Savur 3-2, Prabhakaran beat Bambos Kouzis of Cyprus 3-1, while Nadeem Ahmed blanked beat Emmanuel Jeandidier of France 3-0.