Winning starts for Advani, Sethi in World Snooker C`ship

Hyderabad: Reigning world champion Pankaj Advani and veteran cueist Geet Sethi went off to impressive starts in the World Snooker Championship, which commenced here today. Advani quelled some early challenges from Daniel Thorp before beating the Australian 4-0 in Men`s section, while Geet Sethi registered a facile 3-0 victory over Mostafa Aly of Egypt in Masters category at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre (HICC). Advani survived the first frame on Pink ball to win it with a 58-39 scoreline and took heart from the good start to leave the Thorp baffled in the second frame, which Advani clinched 109(71)-06. In the next two frames, Thorp struggled to find his touch as Advani won 71-21, 68-05 to round off the tally. Meanwhile, Sethi also put up dominant performance to tame his Egyptian opponent 75-20, 60-03, 70-18. The prestigious tournament, dubbed as the Olympics of Snooker, is being participated by 96 cueists in the Men`s category, 48 in Masters (40+) and 24 in Ladies section. Meanwhile, Sandeep Gulati and Alok Kumar were the other Indians to experience good starts with comfortable wins over Moosa Saleem (Mauritius) and Mekdad Murad Taqi (Kuwait), respectively. However, the biggest disappointment for the Indian camp came when Manan Chandra squandered an early 2-0 lead and went down to Alex Borg of Malta 2-4. Meanwhile, in Masters Category Devendra Joshi, SA Saleem, K Ranjan and Venkatesham of India put up impressive show on the opening day. In Ladies category, Chitra Magimairaj and Anuja Chandra of India won their matches comfortably, although reigning national champion Meenal Thakur lost to Yu Ching Ching of Hong Kong 1-3. Bureau Report