Geet reaches semis

Veteran Geet Sethi conjured a near 500-point break as he brushed aside Vishal Madan to storm into the semifinals of the 14th G Raman Nair handicap billiards tournament here on Thursday.

In command from the start, the eight-time world champion asserted his supremacy in superb fashion, blasting a break of 494 before following it up with stints of 154 and 113 to defeat Madan 150-103 at the ECA Club.

Sethi, thus, set up a mouth-watering semifinal against in form B Bhaskar, who eased past R Umadevi Nagaraj 150-0.

Home hero Pankaj Advani, who early this month ventured into professional snooker, showed he still hasn’t lost any of his three-ball skills, crushing State-mate D Rajkumar 150-0 in the other quarterfinal. Advani started off with a break of 350 and signed off with an unfinished 257.

Dhruv Sitwala beat Bharat Chugh 150-70 in the day’s opening quarterfinal.

Results (quarterfinals): Dhruv Sitwala (900) bt Bharat Chugh (300) 150 (132, 144)-70; Pankaj Advani (900) bt D Rajkumar (500) 150 (350, 187, 257 unf)-0; Geet Sethi (900) bt Vishal Madan (500) 150 (494, 154, 113)-103 (75, 79); B Bhaskar (900) bt R Umadevi Nagaraj (300) 150 (127, 163)-0.