Women guaranteed medal, men ousted at World Snooker Championships

Daugapils (Latvia): India`s Varsha Sanjeev and Chitra Magimairajan entered the quarter-final of the IBSF World Snooker Championships even as the men`s challenge ended in the last-16 round here.

Even among the two Indian women, only one will finish on the podium as the two cueists will battle it out for a place in the semifinals to bag a bronze medal at least. Incidentally, 17-year-old Varshaa and seasoned Chitra beat their national teammates to set up a clash later in the day. Varsha outperformed Arantxa Sanchis 4-1 while Chitra got the better of Vidya Pillai 2-4 yesterday. Varshaa finally showed her maturity as she combined aggression, for potting from any where, with caution to beat Arantxa. Chitra, on the other hand, started in her usual style winning the first two frames with confidence. But Vidya got her act together to bring parity. But having a record of sorts for failing too many times from winning position, she kept her resolve to rise to Vidya`s slow play. Manan Chandra and Shahbaaz Adil Khan lost to England`s Jeff Cundy and Zhao Xintong of China in their respective pre-quarterfinal matches to end India`s march in the men`s section yesterday. While Chandra was outclassed 0-5 by Cundy, Shahbaaz was defeated 1-5 in an one-sided contest. Chandra was never allowed a chance to look in or settle down by Cundy. In the fourth frame, Chandra had a break to seize the lead but Cundy came up with a 74 break to win the frame while Shahbaaz was way below-par and when opportunities arose he failed to grab them. Results: Women`s - Chitra Magimairajan beat Vidya Pillai 4-2 (79-40, 85-16, 33-59, 43-46, 74-56, 61-52) Varshaa Sanjeev beat Arantxa Sanchis 4-1 (68-26, 37-64, 54-19, 68-4, 59-33) Men`s: Manan Chandra lost to Jeff Cundy 5-0 (54-75, 0-120(103), 25-65, 69-74(74), 20-77) Shah Baaz Adil Khan lost to Zhao Xintong China 5-1 (46-83, 18-72, 40-67, 31-61, 85-54, 55-68).