Defending champion Pankaj Advani rallied in fantastic fashion to put it across Sri Lanka’s Mohamed Thaha Irshath 4-3 and move into the knockout stages of the Asian Snooker Championships in Doha, Qatar, on Sunday.
The Indian ace, a three-time champion, won both his matches to top three-player Group ‘A’. Advani, who outclassed Oman’s Ahmed Bashir 4-0 in a late-night match on Saturday, had to dig deep into his reserves to down the Lankan cueist.
After dropping the opening frame of the best-of-seven frame match, Advani came up with a sizzling 140 break to level scores. The 40-year-old took the next frame as well to go 2-1 up. But the Irshath fought back splendidly to take the next two. Unfortunately, the Lankan couldn’t quite maintain the same tempo against his experienced rival.
Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Advani then made the most of the generous offerings from Irshath to take the sixth 70-43 and closed out the match in the next without much ado.
Earlier, Laxman Rawat kept his hopes alive of making the knockouts with a lopsided win over Chinese Taipei’s Li Po Yu in Group ‘J’. He has to win his final group match against the undefeated Chau Hon Man of Hong Kong to advance.
Like Rawat, Ketan Chawla is faced with a must-win situation after going down to Amir Sarkhosh 1-4 last night. He takes on Bahrain’s Abdulla Alaali in his final Group ‘B’ league match.
Results: Group A: Pankaj Advani (Ind) beat Mohamed Thaha Irshath (SL) 4-3 (49-61, 140 (140) -0, 68-28, 37-60, 17-61, 70-43, 66-7); Advani beat Ahmed Bashir (Oman) 4-0 (66 (52) -33, 66-18, 81-13, 57-49);
Group B: Amir Sarkhosh (Irn) beat Ketan Chawla (Ind) 4-1 (84 (69) -26, 8-101 (76), 65-17, 83-0, 57-47).
Group J: Laxman Rawat (Ind) beat Li Po Yu (Tpe) 4-0 (66-9, 84 (52) -0, 77-0, 57-38).
