Advani posts 115 en route easy win

Pankaj Advani topped in his league round and entered the knockout phase of the final leg of the Indian Open snooker qualifier here Wednesday.

Giving Advani company in the knockouts will be Sumit Talwar, Kamal Chawla, Alok Kumar, Neeraj Kumar and Brijesh Damani.

Advani, India's No.1 snooker player, registered a second century break in a span of two days with a 115 clearance to outplay Manish Jain of West Bengal 4-0 in a Group A encounter.

In another Group A match, Neeraj Kumar moved past Chandigarh's Rajat Khaneja 4-3 to also take a place in the knockout round.

Former national champion Alok Kumar ended the challenge of state player Hasan Badami with a facile 4-1 win to take a spot from Group B while India No.2 Kamal Chawla of Railways scored his third win on the trot for a place in the knockouts, ousting J. Varun Kumar of Tamil Nadu 4-0.

The resuls:

Group A: Neeraj Kumar (Rly) bt Rajat Khaneja (Chd) 4-3; Pankaj Advani (PSPB) bt Manish Jain (WB) 4-0.

Group B: Alok Kumar (PSPB) bt Hasan Badami (Mah) 4-1; Kamal Chawla (Rly) bt J. Varun Kumar (TN) 4-0.

Group C: R. Girish (Rly) bt Rafat Habib (Rly) 4-3.

Group D: Anuj Uppal (Del) bt Siddharth Parikh (Rly) 4-2.

Group E: Manan Chandra (PSPB) bt Himanshu Jain (AP) 4-1; Faisal Khan (Rly) bt Shivam Arora (Bih) 4-2.