World snooker: Sethi, Advani score

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November 19, 2009 20:13 IST

Geet Sethi shrugged off a first frame deficit to thrash Kuwait's Ayyoub Alsharrah in the Masters category, while World champion Pankaj Advani continued his brilliant run in the men's event, defeating compatriot Sandeep Gulati, in the IBSF World Snooker Championships, in Hyderabad, on Thursday.

After surrendering the first frame to Zammit, Sethi got his act together and struck the balls with sheer excellence to compile a nice break of 68 and draw level.

Sethi's potting and smooth cushion work helped him win the remaining two frames.

Alsharrah is yet to open his account in the prestigious event at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre.

Sethi won 15-71, 68-29, 43-41, 83-07 to settle for second position in Group B, behind Malta's Simon Zammit.

In the men's event, National billiards and snooker champion Advani got the better off countryman Gulati 4-1 to retain top position in his Group A from four matches.

Advani tamed Gulati, who is second in the same group, 98(66)-00, 70-48, 66(55)-15, 42-65, 77-41.

Other matches in the men's event saw mixed fortunes for Indians as veteran Yasin Merchant, Aditya Mehta and Kamal Chawla won to keep their knock-out-stage hopes alive, but four others lost.

Merchant defeated Muhammad Asif of Pakistan 134(134)-00, 23-58, 69-38, 64-16, 108(58)-16), while Aditya Mehta overwhelmed compatriot Balaji Reddy in straight frames 85-59, 75-16, 80-14, 77(62)-37.

Kamal trounced Sweden's Suleman Salam 76-21, 57-46, 41-71, 00-68, 77-00, 118(94)-02.

However Shahbaz Khan, Rupesh Shah, Dhruv Sitwala and M S Arun were not as fortunate.

In the Masters category, Indians came up with an all-round performance, with Rafat Syed Habib and BVS Murthy winning their respective games.

Habib outwitted Naoki Matsuzaki of JapanĀ  55-02, 80-45, 70-38 while Murthy got the better off Sri Lanka's Prasanna Maddumage 64-52, 49-38, 68-15.

Saleem defeated Finland's Petri Kopponen 44-33, 13-64, 76-24, 72-15.

Prabhakaran, however, disappointed the crowd with his lackluster show and went down to Egypt's Momen Elansary (0-3) 35-78, 21-73, 10-61.

In the Ladies' category, Vidya Pillai and Meenal Thakur registered comfortable victories over Kathy Howden of Australia and Jeanne Young of South Africa respectively.

Pillai defeated Howden 50-45, 64-16, 63-33, while Thakur trounced Young 62-23, 48-25, 62-21.

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