Advani, Chawla enter 6-Red snooker knockout

Pankaj Advani and Kamal Chawla kept the Indian hopes alive after making it to the last 16 stage of the 6-Red Snooker Championship here today after a host of other national cueists lost out.
On a disappointing day for India, Brijesh Damani, Sourav Kothari and Faisal Khan failed to cross the Round of 64 in the singles event while Dharminder Lilly, Shivam Arora, Varun Madan, Ketan Chawla and Laxman Rawat lost their respective matches in the Round of 32.
But Advani, who is a winner of eight World billiards and snooker titles, kept his composure to outplay Fung Kwok Wai of Hong Kong 4-1 to advance to the knockout stage.

Kamal, who was the Asian 6-Red semi-finalist in 2010, also kept the good work going by humbling his Thai opponent Chuchart Trairattanpradit 4-1.
Indians though fared better in the World Team 15-Red snooker event with Advani and Kamal leading the way.
The Advani-Kamal pair combined well to blank the Qatari duo of Ahmed Saif and Mohsen Bukshaisha 3-0.

Rawat and Faisal also had a successful pairing as the Indian duo humbled Yousef Alwadi and Ahmed Sarhan of Saudi Arabia 3-0.
Kothari and Arora also had a good doubles outing after thrashing Ahmed Galai and Mohammad Hemdam of Egypt 3-0.
Ketan and Madan were the only doubles casualty for India after they went down to the Egyptian pair of Wael Talaat and Hatem Haseen 1-3.