Defending champion Pankaj Advani of PSPB held off the challenge of Delhi’s Sandeep Gulati by five frames to three today to enter the semifinals of the 7th National 6-Red snooker tournament being held here.
He will meet teammate Sourav Kothari in the last four.
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The other semifinal will pit Akshay Kumar (Uttar Pradesh) against former IBSF world 6-Red Championship runner-up Kamal Chawla.
Multiple times world champion Advani raised his level of play after sharing the first four frames with Gulati.
Up 4-2, Advani faced some resistance as his rival came up with some good safety play. He held firm and took the seventh frame to advance.
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Akshay Kumar defeated local boy R Girish of RSPB 5-2 to progress to his maiden 6-Red national semifinal.
“I’m feeling very happy, words can’t explain how happy I am. I played well and I’m looking forward to play the same way tomorrow in the semis”, Akshay said after the win.
{{/usCountry}}“I’m feeling very happy, words can’t explain how happy I am. I played well and I’m looking forward to play the same way tomorrow in the semis”, Akshay said after the win.
{{/usCountry}}In the other quarterfinals, Chawla of RSPB defeated Ishpreet Singh of Maharashtra 5-3 and Kothari beat Varun Madan of Delhi 5-3.
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By entering the semifinals, Advani, Kothari, Akshay Kumar and Chawla have qualified to represent India in the Asian 6-Red snooker championship to be held next year.
In the pre-quarters, Pankaj defeated Pushpender Singh 5-1, with a phenomenal break of 74 in the match. Tamil Nadu’s G Prabhu and Vijay Nichani lost out to Akshay Kumar and Sourav Kothari respectively.