Advani makes a blazing start

Umadevi, Chitra to clash in final of women billiards

Defending champion Pankaj Advani made a blazing start to his National Snooker Championship campaign, trouncing Tushar Shreshta of Bihar here on Sunday.

PSPB's Advani, who lifted the preceding billiards title without dropping a frame, was in a similarly destructive mood as he whipped Shreshta 3-0 at the KSBA hall.

Advani looked in regal touch from the word go, conjuring a break of 125 points in the opening frame. He could have had more but got himself into a bad position after potting a ninth consecutive black. He tried going for a 10th black by playing the red hard but still wasn't able to get into a decent position. He then potted yellow before missing the pink ball.

Advani, gunning for a 32nd national title, conjured a 62-point break in the second frame before winning a somewhat scrappy third frame.

Meanwhile, seasoned Karnataka players R Umadevi Nagaraj and Chitra M will lock horns in the final of the women's billiards competition after posting straightforward victories in their respective semifinal battles.

Umadevi ousted talented youngster Varshaa Sanjeev, also from Karnataka, 2-0 (75-52, 75-69) in a tight tussle, while Chitra beat Delhi's Keerath Bhandaal 2-0 (77-49, 75-65). Keerath had earlier stunned defending champion Amee Kamani of Madhya Pradesh 2-0 (50-35, 50-14) in the quarterfinals.

Results: Men: Snooker: Group A: Pankaj Advani (PSPB) bt Tushar Shreshta (Bih) 3-0; Vishal Gundrecha (Guj) bt Aditya Agarwal (Rlys) 3-2.

Group B: Mukund Bharadia (Mah) bt E Pandurangaiah (Rlys) 3-0; KS Naveen (Kar) bt Peter Paul (Rlys) 3-2.

Group C: Malkeet Singh (Rlys) bt Priyank Jaiswal (MP) 3-0; Shoaib Khan (Del) bt Krishna Barad (Goa) 3-1.

Group D: R Girish (Rlys) bt Harish Gandhi (MP) 3-0; Sundeep Gulati (Del) bt Harshit Verma (Ukd) 3-0.

Group E: Laxman Rawat (PSPB) bt Harshit Madan (Raj) 3-0.
 
Group F: Arvind Kumar (Rlys) bt Anuj Bhargava (UP) 3-1; Taufique Ali (Meg) bt Vybhav Mehra ((Bih) 3-2.
 
Group G: Hrithik Jain (MP) bt Sunil Kumar (HP) 3-0.

Group H: Anuj Uppal (Del) bt G Prabhu (TN) 3-1.

Group I: IH Manudev (Kar) bt Johnson Narsidani (Guj) 3-1; Lucky Vatnani (Tel) bt Md Raza (Odi) 3-0.
 
Group J: Dhvaj Haria (Guj) bt Sahil Dora (Ukd) 3-1; Sahil Nayyar (Pun) bt Digvijaj Kadian (Har) 3-1.

Group K: Sumeet Talwar (Chd) bt Tridib Deka (Asm) 3-0; Anurag Giri (MP) bt Prakash Agrawal (Chg) 3-0.

Group L: Rahul Sachdeva (Mah) bt Rishabh Jain (Del) 3-1; Ishpreet Chadha (Mah) bt Lalrina Renthlei (Miz) 3-1.

Group M: B Bhaskar (Kar) bt Abhijeet Ranade (Mah) 3-1; Siddharth Parikh (Rlys) bt Anish Parikh (Jhar) 3-0.

Group N: Manan Chandra (PSPB) bt Yash Kinger (Jhar) 3-0; Ketan Chawla (MP) bt ML Lakshman (Kar) 3-1.

Group O: Neeraj Kumar (Rlys) bt Abhimanyu Gandhi (Mah) 3-1; Akshay Kumar (UP) bt Sonam Gurung (Meg) 3-0.

Group P: Dilip Kumar (Rlys) bt Ankit Kariwala (WB) 3-0; Shahbaaz Khan (Mah) bt Kamal Chawla (Rlys) 3-2.

Group Q: Pushpender Singh (Rlys) bt Mudit Poddar (WB) 3-1; Asutosh Padhy (Odi) bt Rajiv Inuganti (AP) 3-0.

Group R: Brijesh Damani (PSPB) bt Dhruv Arora (Har) 3-0; Varun Madan (Del) bt Taaha Khan (Mah) 3-0.

Group S: Md Ghouse (Tel) bt Devendra Joshi (Mah) 3-2.

Group T: Himanshu Jain (Tel) bt Aayush Kumar (Pun) 3-1; Sparsh Pherwani (Mah) bt Sean Davis (Kar) 3-1.

Group U: Kushal Chandrashekar (Kar) bt Khizer Raoof (Tel) 3-0; Anmol Deep Singh (Pun) bt Paras Gupta (UP) 3-2.

Group V: Faisal Khan (Rlys) bt V Susheel (AP) 3-0; Piyush Kushwa (MP) bt Nishant Biswal (Odi) 3-0.

Group W: Hasan Badami (Mah) bt Shoaib Khan (Rlys) 3-1.

Group X: Sourav Kothari (PSPB) bt Nabil Lakadwala (Tel) 3-0;

Group Y: Rafath Habib (Rlys) bt Vinay Chawla (Pun) 3-1; Shahbaaz Adil Khan (PSPB) bt Pranit R (TN) 3-2.

Women: Billiards: Semifinals: R Umadevi Nagaraj (Kar) bt Varshaa Sanjeev (Kar) 2-0 (75-52, 75-69); Chitra M (Kar) bt Keerath Bhandaal (Del) 2-0 (77-49, 75-65).

Quarterfinals: Keerath bt Amee Kamani (MP) 2-0 (50-35, 50-14); Chitra M bt Vidya Pillai (Kar) 2-0 (50-25, 51-8); R Umadevi N bt Arantxa Sanchis (Mah) 2-0 (50-39, 50-38); Varshaa S bt I Lahari (Tel) 2-1 (40-50, 51-16, 51-40).