Ludhiana, April 3 Star cueist Pankaj Advani, who won the 9-ball event three days ago, advanced to the semifinals of the 10-ball national championships, stunning reigning champion Shivam Arora here on Friday.
Advani proved too strong for Arora in the quarterfinals, as evidenced by his 8-2 victory, setting up a last-four showdown with fellow PSPB cueist Shahbaaz Adil Khan.
The latter also prevailed by a similar margin over Punjab's Sumesh Jhangra in the other quarterfinal.
The other semifinal will be played between Railways' Pushpender Singh and Aayush Kumar of Punjab. While Pushpender defeated Punjab's Divya Sharma 8-6, Aayush overcame Telangana's Chetan Chabra 8-7.
Advani was in top form from the start, giving his fancied rival little chance in the race-to-8 clash.
Meanwhile, Shahbaaz started a bit slowly at the adjacent table.
However, once he found his rhythm, the Kolkata-based player played a brilliant game, potting brilliantly and demonstrating excellent cue ball control en route to a decisive victory.