Former Asian champion Alok Kumar booked a berth in the knockout quarterfinal stage on the second day of the 12th Asian English Billiards Championships here today.
Although all the round robin matches will end on Thursday, but in his group combination he has clearly stepped into knockout.
In today's match, despite losing the first game, Alok had little difficulty in defeating his compatriot Dhvaj Haria 4-1 (62-102, 101-37, 101-41, 102-09, 100-54)
However, Aung Htay of Myanmar defeated the other Indian, K Venkatesham 4-2.
Leading 2-0, Aung played little loose and Venkatesham took advantage by winning third game to narrow the margin.
Sniffing the danger, Aung registered century break to maintain the lead but Venkatesham again bounced back and clinched next game. However, before Venkatesham could do anything in the sixth game, Aung scored 87 points break to seal the match.
Both the players from Vietnam -- Nguyen Thanh Long and Nguyen Thanh Binh -- won their respective matches easily by defeating Mohd Yousef of Pakistan and Singapore's Fan Kian Sang by identical scores 4-0.
On second day of ONGC 14th Asian Under-21 Snooker championship, the break machine from China registered another century break but this time bettered the previous one by scoring 130 with 14 red clearance.
Zhou constructed this break while playing against Nitesh Madan of India.
Nitesh, after potting first red, played safe from where Zhou smashed a long pot and started picking balls one by one. He went smoothly till the last 4 reds were left on the table in a form of a small bunch.
To open that Zhou played exceptionally well black pot using follow-spin and succeeded to continue on break that ended at 130.
During the entire match, Zhou registered frame winning breaks in every frame. He scored 40, 60 and 65 points in first, third and fourth frames, those were enough to shatter India No.2 Nitesh.
Nitesh had also lost his morning session match 0-4 to Muhammad Majjid Ali of Pakistan). He has already lost 3 matches and his chances to qualify for knockout have already been diminished.
In all India affair, Malkeet Singh registered 4-1 win against compatriot, Vishal Vaya.
Vishal managed to win only second frame and had no further chance.
