Agrawal, Altamash advance to last 16

Altamash Saifi of Delhi and Aditya Agrawal of Railways scored contrasting wins to enter the knock out pre-quarterfinals of the Rs 1.89 lakh NSCI-BoI All India 9-Ball Open Pool tournament here today.
Saifi overcame local cueist Hitesh Kotwani of the Cricket Club of India and Chetan Chabbra of Hyderabad with identical 5-4 winning margin before prevailing over Faisal Khan of Railways 5-3 and qualify from Group D as the topper, Khan finished second.
Shivam Arora of suburban Khar Gymkhana advanced from Group F with three straight wins, while Railways' Agrawal pipped Mumbai rivals Vinit Ahuja of NSCI and Sumit Devgan of Lions Sports Club with a better aggregate to finish second in the group.

Also advancing were Siddharth Parikh of Railways and Deepak Khubchandani of Khar Gymkhana from Group E, and Laxman Rawat of Triace and Rishabh Thakkar of Khar Gymkhana from Group G.
Results (all from Mumbai unless stated otherwise): Group D: Faisal Khan (Rlys) bt Chetan Chabbra (Hyd) 5-0; Altamash Saifi (Delhi) bt Hitesh Kotwani 5-4; Altamash Saifi (Delhi) bt Chetan Chabbra 5-4; Faisal Khan bt Hitesh Kotwani 5-2; Altamash Saifi bt Faisal Khan 5-3; Chetan Chabbra bt Hitesh Kotwani 5-2.
Group E: Joy Saha bt Siddharth Parikh (Rlys) 5-4; Dev Dongre bt Deepak Khubchandani 5-3; Deepak Khubchandani bt Joy Saha 5-3; Siddharth Parikh bt Deepak Khubchandani 5-3.

Group F: Shivam Arora bt Vinit Ahuja 5-2; Shivam Arora bt Sumit Devgan 5-4; Vinit Ahuja bt Aditya Agrawal 5-3; Sumit Devgan bt Vinit Ahuja 5-1; Shivam Arora bt Aditya Agrawal.
Group G: Laxman Rawat bt Swaroop Pillai 5-1; Rishabh Thakkar bt Karan Chugh 5-2; Laxman Rawat bt Karan Chugh 5-1; Rishabh Thakkar bt Swaroop Pillai 5-0; Laxman Rawat bt Rishabh Thakkar 5-0; Swaroop Pillai bt Karan Chugh 5-3.