Former IBSF World Champion Pankaj Advani of Karnataka produced one of his best performances to edge out defending champion Alok Kumar of Punjab 5-3 to enter the semifinals of the LIC-BSNL Senior National Snooker championship in Chennai on Tuesday.

It was Pankaj's day out as he overcame two big names in the green baize game, Geet Sethi and Alok, in a single day to stay in contention for the snooker title, after losing out on the Billiards title.

Pankaj was in fine knick as he reeled off the first three frames, dropped the next three, before getting his acts together to post a 68-55, 85-27, 81-9, 1-122, 29-74, 39-75, 84-32, 75-14 win and earn a berth in the last four.

Pankaj would meet seasoned Yasin Merchant of Maharashtra in the semifinals, while in the other contest Manan Chandra would take on Sarang Shroff tomorrow.

While Yasin derailed Ashok Shandilya of Railways 5-2, Manan Chandra defeated Siddarth Rao 5-0 and Sarang Shroff blanked Rafath Habib of Railways 5-0.

Buoyed by his victory over Geet in the pre-quarterfinals earlier in the day, Pankaj displayed some brilliant stuff against Alok, who was not the one to succumb under pressure.

In a lively encounter, Pankaj, showed enough tenacity to overcome his far more experienced rival, with some excellent potting in the first three frames. In fact it was Alok who called the shots with a break of 41 in the first frame. Pankaj Advani came back well to win the frame. He was at his peak form in the second and third, which he won without much ado.

However, the resilience of Alok came to the fore in the fourth, as the Punjab cueist notched up two half-century breaks to narrow the lead to 1-3.

A 56 in the fifth and 44 in the sixth was more than enough as Alok recovered from 0-3 to equalize at 3-3 in frame score.

Not to be outdone, Pankaj found his touch in the crucial seventh frame and carried it forward in the eighth to emerge winner. Advani was leading 50-0 and Alok came up with a break of 13.

In a tactical move, Pankaj snookered behind the yellow and later came up with a long red pot before snookering behind pink to make matters tough for Alok. Pankaj waited for the opening and once he got it he potted the remaining two reds and a black.

With only the colours remaining, Alok came up to shake hands with his young rival triggering all round applause from the motley crowd.

Following are the results:

Snooker:

Quarterfinals: Pankaj Advani (PSPB) bt Alok Kumar (PSPB) 68-55, 85-27, 81-9, 1-122, 29-74, 39-5, 84-32,75-14; Yasin Merchant (Maha) bt Ashok Shandilya (Rlys) 89-21, 55-22, 59-19, 76-25, 45-73, 43-69, 58-23; Sarang Shroff (Maha) bt Rafath Habib (TN) 100-9, 89-0, 58-15, 73-23, 83-01; Manan Chandra (Del) bt Siddharth Rao (TN) 82-32, 58-52, 79-6, 104-17, 62-17.

- UNI