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Nalin Patel joins Sethi in last eight

Bill McArthur in Madras

Nalin Patel of India has been having a terrific year on the World professional billiards circuit. Good results in three major ranking tournaments have seen him rise to a career-high seventh in the Embassy world rankings, a status - in the top eight - only current World champion Geet Sethi has held among the Indian pros.

And the 40-year-old Indian businessman could well climb further. He took another step in that direction when he joined Sethi in the quarter-final stage of the Florsheim World Professional Billiards Championships, riding through on a fluent 1001-840 triumph over compatriot Balchandra Bhaskar. In the process, the balding cueist constructed an exquisite run of 241, which is the highest of the tournament thus far.

At the Taj Connemara here on Thursday, two Englishmen also made the stage of eight. And both were highly impressive winners. Peter Sheehan, a Teesider who is only in his second year as a pro but one who has leapfrogged 20 places this year to be ranked 11th, played solid billiards to knock out Australia's world No. 4 Robbie Foldvari, a former World champion, 1003-682.

In the course of that triumph, the shaven-head Sheehan registered his second double century break - a neatly-strung 219. On Wednesday, he had a 240-run in his rout of India's Aditya Goenka, which stood as the highest till Patel broke loose today.

At the same time, Chris Shutt, who also turned pro a year before Sheehan, battered the daylights out of a listless Devendra Joshi of India 1001-420. Shutt knocked in century runs almost a will but somehow was unable to turn these breaks into double or triple hundreds. Yet, it was an exquisite execution of the Floating White pattern of play.

For Joshi, it will be a reverse he would like to forget in a hurry. It was not that he did not have the chances to challenge or check his speedy six-foot-five rival. But his cueing was horrendous and he repeatedly botched basic pots. It was the quickest victory of the tournament.

Later in the day, another Indian cueist crashed out of the competition. Ashok Shandilya fared no better than Joshi. And Peter Gilchrist, a former World champion who is also the chairman of the billiards committee of the WPBSA, punished him severely.

The portly Shandilya did make a bid to push his lanky rival. But it was too late. The gap was too wide to bridge and Gilchrist was home and dry at 1001-709.