Asian Games champion Pankaj Advani and compatriot Rupesh Shah were knocked out of the Asian Billiards Championships in Doha after losing in the quarter-finals.
Advani, the reigning world champion, lost 3-4 to former World professional champion Peter Gilchrist of Singapore, formerly of England [Images], who had squeezed into the knock-out stage after defeating Shah in his last league encounter on Tuesday.
Advani lost 7-104, 12,102, 25-102, 101-9, 100-31, 100-86, 27-101.
Earlier in the morning session, Gilchrist beat Shah 3-1 [100-6, 99-101, 100-79, 100-29] to make it to the quarter-finals.
Shah, who had already qualified for the quarter-finals after winning four preliminary round matches, was thrashed 4-1 [100-19, 0-100, 100-49, 100-2, 100-11] by Aung Htay of Myanmar in another quarter-final at the Qatar Billiards and Snooker Federation hall.
Htay had defeated Advani in their last league match.
Defending champion Aung Sun Oo of Myanmar was also shown the door. He lost to Nguyen T Long of Vietnam 4-2 [100-61, 101-49, 100-66, 36-100, 99-102, 102-13] on Tuesday.
In the last all-Thai quarter-final, Thawat Sujaritthurakarn defeated Udon Khaimuk 4-0 [101-41, 100-53, 101-20, 100-69 for a semi-final slot.
The semi-final line-up is: Peter Gilchrist (Singapore) versus Nguyen T Long (Vietnam) and Thawat Sujaritthurakarn (Thailand) versus Aung Htay (Myanmar).