Advani makes last eight grade

Not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, Pankaj Advani made the best of a horrendous miss in the final frame by his opponent Stuart Bingham to notch a match-winning break of 86 clearance and advanced to the quarterfinals of the Indian Open World Snooker professional ranking tournament here Thursday.

Advani awaits the winner of Mark Williams-Aditya Mehta match later in the day while the quarterfinal matches are to be played Thursday night after 8 p.m.

World No.12 Bingham, the 37-year old from England, after coming back from 1-3 down, had the match in the bag when on a 30 break in the final frame with the bunch of reds nicely spread out. However, he missed a sitter red in the top pocket and left it in the jaw.

The 70th ranked Advani, who had all but resigned to defeat, strode to the table and crafted a 86 clearance to come through 4-3 and qualify for only his second quarterfinal round after the Welsh Open in February.

Advani, 28, from Bangalore, playing the match less than 12 hours after he beat World No.11 Mark Allen Wednesday, had started off well with breaks of 53 and 46 clearance for a 1-0 lead but a mistake in the second saw Bingham put in a brilliant run of 117 clearance to level at 1-1.

In the third frame, Advani capitalised on a Bingham's miss on a yellow for a run of 67 and followed it up with 53 in the next to go 3-1 up.

However, in the crucial fifth frame, an error by Advani saw Bingham come up with a run of 72 and in the next, the Englishman punished his opponent for another miss by notching a 119 clearance.

Bingham then looked certain to clinch the match when he crafted a 30 break and with the reds scattered comfortably, the frame was his for the asking. However, he left a red in the jaw and Advani responded with a break of 86 clearance to seal the match. Advani had to shut out some disturbance in the stands where the crowd got a bit excited when Bingham missed the red.

"I am relieved to get through this match. Stuart is a fluent and attacking player but I got back my safety play and was much more solid than in my previous match. The break of 86 was the last blow," said a relieved Advani.

When queried about the crowd incident in the final frame, Advani said: "I know that the crowd gets a bit too excited but I shut everything off from my mind. When he was on that run in the last frame, I thought he could take the frame but I was pleasantly surprised when he missed the red. I told myself to play one shot at a time, one ball at a time. The 86 was a very standard break in snooker terms as the reds were all spread. There was nothing special about the break."

Meanwhile, Scotland's 22-year-old Stuart McGill too advanced to the quarterfinals, overwhelming Joe Perry of England 4-2, aided by a break of 138 in the last frame.

On another table, China's World No.4 Ding Junhui knocked out four-time World Champion John Higgins 4-2 while Robbie Williams overwhelmed Joe Perry 4-2 to book quarterfinal berths.

Round of 16 results: Pankaj Advani (IND) bt Stuart Bingham (ENG) 4-3 (99-26, 01-117, 80-15, 69-16, 11-72, 08-119, 86-30); Robbie Williams (ENG) bt Mike Dunn (ENG) 4-0 (57-49, 134-00, 67-05, 63-55); Anthony McGill (SCO) bt Joe Perry (ENG) 4-2 (00-80, 72-52, 77-06, 30-71, 109-22, 138-0); Ding Junhui (CHN) bt John Higgins (SCO) 4-2 (27-84, 62-21, 62-25, 109-00, 00-94, 77-00).