Former national champion Siddharth Rao of Tamil Nadu caused a flutter, disposing of young aspirant Sourav Kothari of PSPB 4-0 on a day when seven other matches (knock-out main draw of 32) went on predicted lines in the 72nd BSNL National Snooker Championship in Chennai.
Bihar's Niraj Kumar put paid to the aspirations of last year's quarter-finalist Rupesh Shah (Gujarat) winning 28-61, 65-52, 8-59, 45-81, 65-25, 63-49, 70-20.
Kumar will take on Busan Asian Games gold (doubles-snooker) medallist Yasin Merchant in the pre-quarter-finals.
Yasin did not have to exert against S Das (Orissa).
After coming up with a clearance (97 pts) in the first frame, Yasin won the next three at 63-55, 62-7 and 69-34.
Rao, who was in great form, though losing in the decider to Geet Sethi in the round-robin stage, won 70-18, 84-0, 79-41, 62-33 against Kothari to set up a pre-quarter-final clash against Faizal Khan of Delhi.
Khan defeated his state-mate Sandeep Gulati rather easily, 85-41,69-21,70-22,90-17.
In a close contest, Aditya Gokena of Bengal survived against Maharashtra's Chirag Ramakrishnan, showing confidence in the decider before winning at 16-63, 58-54, 28-29, 74-16, 47-66, 71-29,74-47.
He plays Manan Chandra (PSPB) in the last 16 stage.
Manan had no difficulty in ousting Umar Hymayoon (J and K) at 105-17,56-13,80-06,68-26.
In the other two second sets of matches, Ashok Shandilya (Rlys) beat Karnataka veteran B Bhaskar (58-24, 40-54, 9-67, 72-25, 43-34, 65-34) and Delhi's Siddharth Anand scored over Shakeel Ahmed (Ben) 50-33, 99-1, 83-2, 55-36.
