Hurghada (Egypt), Nov 20:
Gunning for his 15th World tittle, ace cueist Pankaj Advani entered the semi-finals of the IBSF World Snooker Championship to assure India of a medal here today.
Advani, who now remains the only Indian in the fray in the men’s category, outplayed Maltese Alex Borg 6-0 to better his last year’s performance when he went down to Yan Bingtao of China in the quarterfinals in Bengaluru.
In the best-of-11-frame battle, Advani consistently put brakes against Borg to put up a century break during his excellent showing of 70-62 112-0 (57) 107(90)-14 83 (50)-46 114 (108)-12 64-27.
Advani also scored the highest break of 141, which he hit in the first game.
India’s poster boy of cue sports will now meet the winner of the contest between Greg Kasey of Ireland and Lukas Kleckers of Germany.
In the Masters category, the only Indian quarterfinalist Rafath Habib failed to reach the medal round as he could not get past Jason Peplow of Malta.(PTI)