Nat Billiards: Advani gets cracking, Kothari surprises Md.Asim

Bangalore, Jan 16 (UNI) Asian Games gold medallist Pankaj Advani began with a bang by brushing aside the challenge from S Simhachalam 572-271, while Saurav Kothari surprised third seed Md. Asim in the billiards main draw of the Senior National Billiards and Snooker Championship, which began at KSBA hall here today.

The 21-year-old Pankaj, representing PSPB, warmed up straight away to crack breaks of 128 and 105 to wallop the Railways player in the 90-minute Group 'F' tie at 572-271.

In Group 'C', qualifier Saurav Kothari came up with useful breaks of 56 and 59 in the right time to ward off seasoned Md.Asim to win at 339-256.

Defending champion Devendra Joshi was also in superb form winning both the matches he played today. The PSPB star first crushed Rafat Habib of Tamil Nadu 600-298 and later effortlessly beat Ravnaq Vazirani of Gujarat 788-198.

The other winners of the day included former world champion Geet Sethi, representing Gujarat, who defeated Varun Taneja 513-290, Alok Kumar of PSPB beat Shyamal Sharma of Bihar 695-200 and veteran Arvind Savur of Karnataka overpowered Md. Akram Khan of West Bengal 618-265.

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