Bangalore: Defending champion Pankaj Advani, eight-time world champion Geet Sethi and Suriya Suwannasingh of Thailand advanced to the pre-quarters of the ONGC-IBSF World Billiards time format championship on Sunday.
Pankaj and Sethi completed their league engagements after winning all the three matches they played.
Pankaj defeated S M Shaharwardi of Sri Lanka 1483-655 in his last league encounter. He posted breaks of 239 in seventh visit, 138 in 17th and 109 during his 51st visit.
Sethi, a contender for the title, outplayed Gary Norman (EBOS) 1544-362. Others to sail into the last sixteen include B Bhaskar (India), Rupesh Shah (India), Thanh Binh Nguyen (Vietnam) and Prem Prakash (India).
Suriya Suwannasingh defeated Wayne Carey (New Zealand) 782-431.
Other results: Peter Gilchrist (Singpore) bt Shyam Jagtiani (India) 1007-735; Md. Asim (India) bt Raghoo Singh (India) 812-698; B Bhaskar (Ind) bt Gary Oliver (New Zealand) 1236-440; Praprut Chaithanasakun (Thailand) bt Brijesh Damani (India) 1015-497; Aidan Murray (Ireland) bt Tiek Chong Alan Puan (Singapore) 538-426; Prem Prakash (India) bt Michael Wright (EBOS) 1527-528; Boon Aun Keith E (Singapore) bt Darren Taylor (New Zealand) 633-598; Devendra Joshi (India) bt Thawat Sujaritthurakarn (Thailand) 1171-556; Saourav Kothari (India) bt Thanh Long Nguyen (Vietnam) 1231-427; Dhruv Sitwala (India) bt Mohammed Aslam (Sri Lanka) 1312-505; Thanh Binh Nguyen (Vietnam) bt Larry Drennan (Ireland) 852-602; Calum Hossack (Scotland) got a walk over against Philip Mumford (England).
