By IANS,
Chennai : Mumbai’s Yasin Merchant rolled back the years while drubbing Devendra Joshi 4-0 en route to the pre-quarterfinals of the 78th Senior National Snooker championship here Sunday.
Merchant, the 44-year-old Asian champion in 1989 and 2002, but not a regular on the snooker circuit, took a mere 50 minutes to demolish Joshi (PSPB) 63-18, 79-0, 52-20, 75-25, a 74 in the second frame marking his progress.
Also through to the round of 16 was defending champion Pankaj Advani (PSPB), who overcame Chandigarh’s Sumit Talwar 4-0 and underlined his form with a polished run of 81 in the third frame.
Among other impressive winners was 1997 champion Siddharth Rao (Tamil Nadu) who despite lack of table time due to business commitments, showcased his undoubted class while edging past Faisal Khan (Maharashtra) 4-3, winning the decider on the higher colours.
Meanwhile, Manan Chandra (PSPB), who is among the more talented cueists in the country, but never quite fulfilled his potential, wasted little time in eliminating Lucky Vatnani (Andhra) 4-1 after losing the first frame. In fact, Vatnani was allowed only seven visits over the four frames that Chandra won.
The results (Round of 32): Yasin merchant (Mah) bt Devendra Joshi (PSPB) 4-0; Pushpinder Singh (Rlys) bt Saket Saurabh (Bih) 4-1; Rafath Habib (Rlys) bt Nigel Lazar (TN) 4-0; Siddarth Rao (TN) bt Faisal Khan (Rlys) 4-3; Neeraj Kumar (Rlys) bt Amit Bhushan (Kar) 4-2; Rupesh Shah (Guj) bt Jasim Tawin (Kar) 4-1; Subrat Das (Ori) bt Anuj Uppal (Mah) 4-3; Vijay Goel (Del) bt Sundeep Gulati (Del) 4-3; Kamal Chwala (Rlys) bt Malkeet Singh (UP) 4-1; Sourav Kothari (PSPB) bt Balaji Reddy (Kar) 4-2; Brijesh Damani (WB) bt Vijay Nichani (TN) 4-1; Manan Chandra (PSPSB) bt Lucky Vatnani (AP) 4-1; Aditya Mehta (PSPB) bt Sarang Shroff (Mah) 4-0; Pankaj Advani (PSPB) bt Sumit Talwar (Chd) 4-0; Alok Kumar (PSPB) bt Venkatesam (Rlys) 4-0; Manu Dev (Kar) bt Rajkumar (Kar) 4-2.