Four Indian cueists in last 48 at Jr Worlds

All four Indian entries in the boys section, Ashutosh Phady, Sahil Nayyar, Ishpreet Singh Chadha and Dhvaj Haria, qualified for the knock-out stage of the IBSF World Under-21 snooker championship here Thursday.

While Chadha and Haria topped their respective groups winning all their four matches, Nayyar won a crucial match against Brazil's Gabriel De Lima 4-0 to finish third in his group with two wins and two defeats, and Phady overcame Ireland's Daniel Dempsey 4-3 for his third win in four matches.

Phady's only defeat in the league was against the 2011 IBSF World champion, Hossein Vafaei Ayouri, the 19-year-old from Iran, who won the match 4-1.

Chadha was the most impressive qualifier among the Indians since he won his matches without dropping a frame as he completed his league engagements with a 4-0 drubbing of UAE's Bader Obaid Almehairi.

Haria dropped the only frame in league when he beat 17-year-old German Lukas Kleckers 4-1 to top his group.

The top three finishers in each of the 16 groups qualify for the knock-out stage that will commence Thursday evening.

In the women's section, Varsha Sanjeev went down 2-3 to Russia's Daria Sirotina to suffer her third defeat in the five-player Group B and thus made her exit.

The 17-year-old Sanjeev, who had beaten Armaghan Hassani (Iran) 3-1, needed to win 3-0 against Sirotina to qualify for the Top 6 knockout stage, but the Russian proved too strong.

Earlier, the other Indian entry Saniya Arif bowed out with three defeats in the four-player Group A from where Keerath Bhandaal, who won one and lost two matches, qualified for the knock-out phase.