Sport - Billiards & Snooker

Advani advances; Manan out

Wels (Austria): Relying on his sharpened safety skills, India’s National snooker champion Pankaj Advani overcame stiff resistance from England’s Craig Steadman to win 5-3 in a last 32 knockout stage encounter of the 2008 IBSF World snooker championship. However India’s No. 2 cueist, the talented Manan Chandra from Delhi crashed out of the event losing 1-5 to Iran’s Soheil Vahedi.

By his own admission, Advani struggled to find rhythm and flow in his opening knockout stage match. The inconsistency in potting was clearly visible especially in the first five frames, which saw the 2003 World champion face 1-2 and 2-3 deficits.

His opponent was potting with the flair and fluency of a seasoned professional in those first four frames manifested in two frame-winning breaks — a 51 in the first and 70 in the third. Faced with such relentless scoring and struggling to find precision in his own potting, Advani resorted to tying his opponent down with some careful tactical play.

This provided immediate results as Steadman on two occasions in the crucial sixth frame failed to negotiate his cue-ball back to the safety of the baulk cushion and in the process left Advani easy openings with the reds spread invitingly in the middle of the table.

The former title-holder of this event gladly accepted the opportunities and more importantly converted them into useful contributions of 42 & 30 to win the sixth frame 72-0.

At 3-3, his body language changed, the focus was heightened and the precision, which had deserted him temporarily, was rediscovered as he won the last two frames with consummate ease to carve a well deserved 5-3 victory.

In stark contrast Manan Chandra was completely off-colour, unable to control the cue-ball and failing to find the target of the pocket on too many occasions.

Vahedi, a young and eager cueist from Iran playing with controlled aggression emphatically won the opening two frames 88-11 and 70-43.

The Delhi-based former World No. 3 tried to regroup but lost two crucial frames 66-50 and 57-55 to face a 0-4 deficit.

He managed to save face by winning the fifth frame before succumbing 5-1.

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