All three Indian men cueists in the fray, including national champion Pankaj Advani, stormed into the knock-out stage of the World Snooker Championship in Jiangmin, China, on Tuesday.

Advani, former Asian champion Yasin Merchant and Alok Kumar won eight matches each out of the possible 10 in Group C, F and H respectively to make it to the last 32.

According to the format of the tournament, the cueists have been divided into eight groups of 11 players each, and only the top four in each group make it to the knock-out stage.

In the matches played on Tuesday, Advani defeated Viliame Umu of Fiji 4-0 to finish third in his group while Merchant blanked Gitsue Lum, also of Fiji, by an identical margin to finish second in his group.

Alok, who lost to group leader Brendan O'Donoghue of Ireland 3-4 in his last league encounter today, also finished second in Group G.

In the women's section, which was introduced for the first time in order to give fillip to the International

Billiards and Snooker Federation's efforts to introduce cue sports in the Beijing Olympics in 2008, all the 32 participants will play in the knock-out stage.

The pairings will be decided on the performance of the players in their respective groups.

National champion Vidya Pillai, who finished her Group A matches with a tally of four wins from seven matches, finished third, while Chitra Maginairajan was fourth in Group C with an identical ratio.

The third Indian women in the event, R Uma Devi, finished sixth in Group D after managing to win just three matches.