Indian Open: Advani loses to Scotland's Clark

Indian ace cueist Pankaj Advani lost a thriller 3-4 against young Scottish rival Rhys Clark, making an exit from the 300,000 pound sterling Indian Open World Ranking Snooker Tournament here today.
Advani fought his way back from 2-3 with a half century break to draw level 3-3 in the best-of-seven-frame wild card round contest to decide who will reach the main 64-player draw.
In the deciding seventh frame Advani was trailing his rival but once again came back by potting the black ball to level the score at 58-all before losing the shoot-off on the black ball as his rival sunk it with a double-back shot into the centre pocket.

Advani lost 8-72, 73-29, 83(83)-0, 54-55, 75(75)-0, 8-72, 65-58.
The exit of the Bengaluru cue ace ended the miserable day for the host country as five other wild card recipients were eliminated, leaving Aditya Mehta - India's lone professional card holder - to carry India's hopes in the five-day tournament.
Prior to Advani's exit, Faisal Khan became the fifth home country cueist to be knocked out in the pre-main draw round.

Khan was beaten 4-2 in the best-of-seven frame match by England professional Nigel Bond, the world number 65 in another wild card round match.
Earlier, India's Neeraj Kumar, Brijesh Damani, Sumit Talwar and Dharminder Lily made their exit by losing their wild card draw matches.

Kumar and Talwar were blanked 4-0 by Thepchaiya Un-Nooh (Thailand) and Adam Duffy (England) respectively.
Damani was beaten 4-1 by Sam Baird of England while Lily frittered away a 3-1 lead to lose 3-4 to 17-year-old Chinese rival Lyu Haotian to add to a miserable day for Indian wild card players.