Pankaj Advani Starts Favourite in 6-Red National Snooker Championship

Chennai: Leading cueists from across the country, including defending champions Pankaj Advani of PSPB and Amee Khamani of Madhya Pradesh, will be seen in action in the seventh National 6 Red Snooker Championship for men and women beginning Saturday.

Advani, who recently won the IBSF World Snooker title in Doha, would be the man to beat in the tournament, which kicks off with the qualifying rounds.

The challenge for Advani is expected to come from current World No 2 Kamal Chawla, Ishpreet Singh, Faizal Khan, Alok Kumar, Manan Chandran and Chennai cueist Rafath Habib.

In the women's section, Amee Kamani, Vidya Pillai, Chitra Magimairaj and Arantxa Sanchis are the prominent players.

Tamil Nadu’s teenage prodigy S Shrikrishna, who won all the six titles in the TNBSA state ranking tournaments recently for the third successive year and four titles in last week's nationals at Bengaluru, would play in the qualifying rounds to make it to the main draw.

A total of 195 players have registered for the men's qualifying rounds, which would be held under the double elimination format, Tamil Nadu Billiards and Snooker Association (TNBSA) General Secretary N Ganesh told reporters.

Meanwhile, the tournaments chief referee R B Ganesh said the main draw matches in both the sections would start on December 20.

As for the qualifying draw, he said the 195 players were divided into 12 groups and four from each group would join 17 players, who have made it to the main draw based on last year's performance in the nationals.

The 65 players in the main draw would be divided into 16 groups and the matches would be best of seven frame affairs.

The top two from each group would qualify for the knockout phase starting with the round of 32.

The last 32 round matches, pre-quarterfinals and quarterfinals would be played under best of nine frames format, the semifinals on December 23 under best of 11 frames and the finals the same day would be a best of 13 frames affair, Ganesh said.

In the women's section, 28 players were divided into two groups of 12 each and top four from each group would qualify for the knockout phase starting from quarterfinals.

The tournament is being hosted by TNBSA for the first time.