He defeated Abhimanyu Gandhi (4-0) and R Girish (4-2) in the group matches.
Meanwhile, R Girish of RSPB ousted local favourite and junior national champion S Shrikrishna of Tamil Nadu 4-2 in his first group match.
Digvijay Kadian whitewashed former Asian gold medallist Manan Chandra 4-0 in his first match. Earlier, Digvijay had shocked Dhruv Sitwala by defeating him in the qualifying rounds.
Dhruv Sitwala made the first maximum break of 75 in the tournament against D Rajkumar.
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Multiple times national champion Alok Kumar has won both the matches he has played and leads in his group.
Local favourite and former Asian Games gold medallist Rafath Habib of RSPB edged past Vinayak Agarwal in the deciding frame 4-3 in his first match.
Tamil Nadu cueists G Prabhu, Vijay Nichani, K Rakesh, S Shrikrishna, R Pranit, S A Saleem and J Varun Kumar qualified for the group stage.
Results: Dhruv Sitwala bt Pranit R 4-3 (29-21, 14-37, 42-4, 0-36, 1-33, 38-34, 39-25);Dhruv Singh bt S A Saleem 4-1 (46-15, 34-23, 2-54, 47-30, 43-34); Vijay Nichani bt G Prabhu 4-3 (7-39, 50-25, 15-44, 60-10, 26-40, 44-36, 40-19); Alok Kumar bt K Rakesh 4-1 (37-11, 53-17, 29-36, 45-0, 40-30); Vinayak Agarwal bt J Varunkumar 4-2 (43-18, 42-15, 37-5, 16-44, 27-34, 47-32).
Alok Kumar bt Daksh Reddy 4-0 (40-6, 55-6, 34-29, 29-16); Rafath Habib bt Vinayak Agarwal 4-3 (34-15, 8-37, 28-25, 40-55, 28-41, 38-13, 31-19); Aneesh Saini bt Pandurangaiah 4 - 0 (37-7, 40-2, 46-14, 42-13); Digvijay Kadian bt Manan Chandra 4 - 0 (33-13, 46-0, 41-16, 52-20).