Rookie Pandya stuns Sethi to enter All India Snooker quarters

Young Rishabh Pandya stunned ace Geet Sethi 4-2 to enter the quarter-finals of the Matunga Gymkhana-BSAM-Pidilite 6-Red All India Open Snooker Championship in Mumbai on Sunday.

Sethi's early exit from the tournament followed those of two other fancied players Aditya Agrawal and Devendra Joshi.

Bhopal-based Kamal Chawla of Railways, who narrowly beat Mumbai's Rovin D'Souza in the round of 32, shut out Dhruv Sitwala of PSPB 4-2 after leading 3-0 in another pre-quarterfinal.

Also joining the casualty list was Mumbai-based Siddharth Parikh of Railways who went down 0-4 to marker Mahadeo Bhogle and Maharashtra No. 1 Nikhil Ootam who lost to Delhi-based Sandeep Gu lati of Railways 3-4.

Two-time Asian snooker champion Yasin Merchant sailed into the quarterfinals with a 4-1 win over Ashok Shandilya of Railways after being taken the distance by Akshay Kumar of Nainital in the earlier round.

Merchant won that tie 4-3 after leading 3-1.

In another pre-quarterfinal, Chennai-based Rafath Habib of Railways also survived a scare before rallying from 2-3 to beat a determined local cueist Sanjeev Shah 4-3 in an absorbing contest.