Guangzhou:
India's receding hopes in cue sports suffered a major blow today when billiards event gold medallist Pankaj Advani was knocked out of the snooker singles competition by China's Junhui Ding but compatriot Aditya Mehta kept the Indian challenge alive by sailing into the quarterfinals at the Asian Games here.
Advani took on an on-fire top-seed Junhui and was hammered 4-1 as the Chinese cuiest was on song to bring up superb breaks of 64, 84, 88 and 81 to simply outclass the Indian on way to the last eight.
Advani, whose best break was 72 when he won the second frame, lost 11-100 86-0 1-84 0-88 7-105 with Junhui coming up with the half century breaks in the frames that he won.
However, another Indian in the fray, Mehta displayed fine potting skills by occupying the cue table for most of the time to win the best of seven frames pre-quarterfinal 4-2 against Chinese Taipei's Yu-Lun Wu.
Mehta took the 1-0 and 2-1 leads that were neutralised by his rival before he pocketed the last two frames with crucial runs of 35 and 24.
His best break was 36 in the third frame while his opponent brought off a 53 in the fourth that he won to level the frame scores.
Mehta won 67-39 49-69 74-42 16-69 72-0 69-37.
The Indian cueist will next meet Singapore's BC Ang, who defeated Malaysia's CL Thou 4-2, in the quarters tomorrow.
India have so far won three cue sports medals at the Games.