Ace Indian cueist Pankaj Advani once again mesmerised the green baize to top the league round and enter the knockout phase of the Indian Open snooker qualifier, here today.
The Bangalore cueist registered a second century break in a span of two days with a 115 clearance to outplay Manish Jain of Bengal in a Group A encounter.
Winner of record 10 world titles, Advani will have Sumit Talwar, Kamal Chawla, Alok Kumar, Neeraj Kumar and Brijesh Damani for company in the knockouts.
In other matches, former national champion Alok Kumar ended the challenge of Maharashtra player Hasan Badami with a 4-1 win to take a spot from Group B while India No.2 Kamal Chawla of Railways scored his third win on the trot for a place in the knockouts.
Results:
Group A: Neeraj Kumar (Rly) bt Rajat Khaneja (Chd) 4-3; Pankaj Advani (PSPB) bt Manish Jain (WB) 4-0.
Group B: Alok Kumar (PSPB) bt Hasan Badami (Mah) 4-1; Kamal Chawla (Rly) bt J. Varun Kumar (TN) 4-0.
Group C: R. Girish (Rly) bt Rafat Habib (Rly) 4-3.
Group D: Anuj Uppal (Del) bt Siddharth Parikh (Rly) 4-2.
Group E: Manan Chandra (PSPB) bt Himanshu Jain (AP) 4-1; Faisal Khan (Rly) bt Shivam Arora (Bih) 4-2.
