Brijesh Damani of PSPB and Shivam Arora of Mumbai registered contrasting wins to set up the title clash in the Rs 1.89 lakh NSCI-BoI All India 9-Ball Open Pool tournament here today.
While Khar Gymkhana's Arora, the former national 6-Red champion, overcame Siddharth Parikh of Railways 9-3, Indian Oil's Damani, the 2009 Otters Club 9-Ball runner-up, rallied from 4-6 to halt Altamash Saifi of Delhi in a 9-7 thriller.
Saifi squandered a 2-0 and 6-4 lead as Damani snatched four racks in a row to surge ahead 8-6.
Saifi made it 7-8 to keep his hopes alive and came within a whisker of drawing level when he potted the 9 but endured an unfortunate in-off that ended his dream run.
Earlier, in an equally exciting quarter-final, another Delhi cueist Avinash Kumar of Uttamnagar, rallied brilliantly from 2-5 to take a 7-5 advantage against Arora.
Kumar was a rack away from storming into the semi-finals when Arora snatched three racks in a row to end the former's campaign.
Results: Semi-finals: Shivam Arora (Khar Gym) bt Siddharth Parikh (Rlys) 9-3; Brijesh Damani (PSPB) bt Altamash Saifi (Delhi) 9-7.
Quarter-finals: Brijesh Damani (PSPB) bt Rafath Habib (Rlys) 8-5; Siddharth Parikh (Rlys) bt Laxman Rawat (Triace) 8-3; Shivam Arora (Khar Gym) bt Avinash Kumar (Delhi) 8-7; Altamash Saifi (Delhi) bt Aditya Agrawal (Rlys) 8-1.
