Also making the cut for the main draw, that begins on May 25, are Jasim Tawin, A Santosh, Sajan Bopanna, Vijay Sadarangani, BS Suresh and Amit Bhushan.
The eight qualifiers will be joined by the top eight cueists from last year’s tournament where they will be pooled into four groups consisting of four players each. The top two cueists from each group will advance to the knockout quarterfinals.
Meanwhile, the qualification rounds for the State-ranking snooker tournament commenced on Saturday.
Results: Jasim Tawin bt L Nagaraj 3-0 (100-26, 100-46, 100-68); A Santosh bt Shams Khan 3-0 (100-83, 100-74, 101-69); Balaji Reddy bt Karl Alphonso 3-0 (100-72, 100-63, 100-41);
Sajan Bopanna bt A Deepak 3-1 (100-51, 99-101, 101-39, 102-95); Vijay Sadarangani bt V Anand 3-2 (100-40, 93-100, 82-100, 100-61, 100-81); BS Suresh bt Pramod Kumar Jain 3-0 (100-81, 101-51, 101-49); Micheal Rebello bt AR Arjun 3-1 (85-100, 100-93, 100-76, 100-67); Amit Bhushan bt Ashok Kumar 3-1 (100-77, 7-101, 100-52, 100-68).
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