England's Alfie Burden on Saturday confirmed the top seed slot for knockout stage of Kolkata Open International Invitation Snooker Championship 2018 being played at the Hindusthan Club here.
On second day of individual competition, Alfie completed his all three league stage matches having straight 3-0 wins to stay first amongst all participants of the event.
On Saturday, while playing against Rishabh Dugar of Kolkata, the Englishman crafted the tournament's highest break so far (125) to close the match proceedings 3-0.
Kolkata based IOCL player Brijesh Damani secured third seed by winning all three matches at a cost of one frame. He also scored a century break against his state-mate Ankit Kariwala in the last frame to secure match win.
Another player from Kolkata, Manish Jain, made an excellent recovery from two frames down to make it level against Laxman Rawat of Railways though his efforts went in vain when Laxman secured the match after black-ball tie 3-2.
Laxman started the proceedings with clearance break of 61 points and went ahead to pocket another frame to take 2-0 lead. He was on ease to clear the match but Manish put him on hold and shown his class with frame winning break of 57 points.
After winning another frame Manish came at par with Laxman and stepped in the final frame.
The decider was tough as both countered each other throughout the frame. But after the black ball tie Laxman succeeded to pot the black and won the match.
For knockouts, Alfie, Aditya Mehta, Brijesh Damani and Laxman. Rawat got one match bye and they will play directly quarter finals.
--IANS
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