Hyderabad:
Geet Sethi shrugged off a first frame deficit to thrash Kuwait's Ayyoub Alsharrah in the masters category while world champion Pankaj Advani continued his brilliant run in the men's event by defeating compatriot Sandeep Gulati in the IBSF World Snooker Championship here on Thursday.
After surrendering the first frame to Zammit, Sethi got his act together and struck the balls with sheer excellence to compile a nice break of 68 to draw level.
Sethi's potting and smooth cushion work helped him win the remaining two frames. Alsharrah is yet to open his account in the prestigious event at the Hyderabad International Convention Centre.
Sethi won 15-71, 68-29, 43-41, 83-07 to settle for second position in Group B behind Malta's Simon Zammit.
In the men's event, National billiards and snooker champion Advani got the better off the countryman Gulati 4-1 to retain top position in his Group A from four matches.
Advani tamed Gulati, who is placed second in the same group, 98(66)-00, 70-48, 66(55)-15, 42-65, 77-41.
Other matches in the men's event spelled mixed fortunes for the Indians as veteran Yasin Merchant, Aditya Mehta and Kamal Chawla won to keep their knockout-stage hopes alive but four other Indians lost.
Merchant defeated Muhammad Asif of Pakistan 134(134)-00, 23-58, 69-38, 64-16, 108(58)-16) while Aditya Mehta overwhelmed compatriot Balaji Reddy in straight frames 85-59, 75-16, 80-14, 77(62)-37.
Kamal trounced Sweden's Suleman Salam 76-21, 57-46, 41-71, 00-68, 77-00, 118(94)-02.
However Shahbaz Khan, Rupesh Shah, Dhruv Sitwala and M S Arun were not lucky.
In the masters category, Indians came up with an all round performance with Rafat Syed Habib and BVS Murthy winning their respective games.
Habib outwitted Naoki Matsuzaki of Japan 55-02, 80-45, 70-38 while Murthy got the better off Sri Lanka's Prasanna Maddumage 64-52, 49-38, 68-15.
Saleem defeated Finland's Petri Kopponen 44-33, 13-64, 76-24, 72-15.
Prabhakaran, however, disappointed the crowd with his lackluster show and went down to Egypt's Momen Elansary (0-3) 35-78 21-73 10-61.