Rupesh Shah stuns Joshi; Advani, Geet Sethi advance to semis

Bangalore, Jan 20 (UNI) Rupesh Shah of Gujarat ousted defending Champion Devendra Joshi, while fancied Pankaj Advani and former World Champion Geet Sethi stormed into the billiards semifinals in the National Billiards and Snooker Championship played at KSBA hall here today.

In a hard fought quarterfinal, Rupesh, with two timely century breaks, edged out Joshi 796-725.

In the other last eight matches, Advani overwhelmed former Asian Champion Ashok Shandilya 1081-808, which included a triple century break of 349 that sealed the fate of the match. Geet Sethi, playing who is in fine nick in this championship struck a break of 546 to coast to a 1404-649 win over Alok Kumar. Dhruv Sitwala completed the semifinal lineup beating B Bhaskar 825-572.

In the semifinal to be played tomorrow, Pankaj Advani meets Rupesh Shah and Geet Sethi plays Dhruv Sitwala.

(Ed: Pickup suitably from BG 26).

UNI