Merchant enters All India snooker last eight

CHENNAI - Top seed and favourite Yasin Merchant kept his nerves to win 4-3 against veteran Geet Sethi en route to the quarterfinals of the Alumni Club All-India invitational snooker tournament here Thursday.

Merchant, a former Asian champion, next meets Vijay Nichani, who overcame Harpreet Singh 4-1 in an all-Chennai clash.

Also advancing to the quarterfinals were Bhopals Kamal Chawla, who fluked the black in the deciding frame to beat local challenger Prem Prakash 4-3 and set up a meeting with former National champion Alok Kumar, who ousted Devendra Joshi 4-3 in a tight match that was decided on the black ball.

Later, Aditya Mehta chalked up a fluent 4-0 result against veteran Ashok Shandilya and marked the victory with a break of 94 in the third frame. Mehta will be up against India No.2 Sourav Kothari, who eased past Manan Chandra 4-1.

The other quarter-final match will be between the winners of the Shahbaz Adil Khan vs. Girish Rajasekar and Brijesh Damani vs. IH Manudev ties that are scheduled for Thursday night.

The Merchant-Sethi encounter was absorbing from start to finish. After the pair split the opening four frames, Sethi constructed a break of 96 for a 3-2 advantage. However, Merchant came back with a 57 before taking the final frame on the pink.

In the other match, Nichani, after losing the first frame, trailed by 36 points with 25 left on the table. He laid some good snookers to not only catch up but also level. Thereafter, it was a one-way traffic as Nichani took the next three frames to clinch the issue.

In contrast, Chawla had to rough it out before defeating Prem Prakash who recovered from a 1-3 deficit to take the match to the wire. Chawla, with breaks of 72 in the first and 88 in the fourth, looked well set, but in the fifth, conceded negative points by going foul-and-miss 13 times while trying to get out of a snooker. Prakash eventually took the frame and the next only to lose the seventh on the black.

The results (pre-quarter-finals):

Yasin Merchant (Mah) bt Geet Sethi (Guj) 4-3; Vijay Nichani (TN) bt Harpreet Singh (TN) 4-1; Kamal Chawla (Rlys) bt Prem Prakash (TN) 4-3; Alok Kumar (PSPB) bt Devendra Joshi (PSPB) 4-3; Aditya Mehta (PSPB) bt Ashok Shandilya (Rlys) 4-0; Sourav Kothari (PSPB) bt Manan Chandra (PSPB) 4-1.