National champion Pankaj Advani rallied from a three-frame deficit to beat Mei Xiwen of China 5-4 and move into the pre-quarter-finals in the World Snooker Championship, at Jiangmin in China, on Wednesday.
On a mixed day for Indian cueists, former Asian champion Yasin Merchant and Alok Kumar bowed out of the flag-ship event along with Chitra Magimairajan while national women's champion Vidya Pillai and R Uma Devi made it to the last 16.
Advani was forced on the back foot by his Chinese opponent, who surged to a 4-1 lead with breaks of 66 and 103 in the third and fifth frames.
But the 19-year-old Banglorean kept his cool and frustrated Xiwen with a mixture of safe play and aggression to take the last four frames and the tie 46-62, 74-16, 29-114, 0-92, 4-121, 62-59, 75-14, 76-35, 55-7.
Advani now faces eighth seed Elfed Evans of Wales in the last 16.
In other matches, Yasin could not pose much of a challenge to Jamie O'Neill of England as he went down 2-5 (34-71, 33-52, 65-68, 78-1, 29-77, 48-26, 43-52).
But the major disappointment of the day came from Alok Kumar, who let go a winning position against Alex Borg of Malta to eventually lose the match 4-5.
The former National champion looked set for an easy victory after establishing a 3-0 lead and consolidated it to 4-1. But cueist from Malta had different plans as he came back strongly and gave Alok no chance in the next four frames to take the tie 81-1, 77-22, 74-9, 4-94, 68-60, 7-65, 0-91, 56-67, 9-61.
In the women's section, national champion Vidya Pillai and R Uma Devi made it to the pre-quarter-finals of the first Ladies championship, winning their matches comprehensively.
Vidya blanked Renata Delahunty of Australia 3-0 (59-52, 51-26, 53-23) while Uma Devi got the better of Val Finnie of Scotland 3-1 (17-56, 55-7, 57-32, 57-40).
Vidya will now take on another Australian, Kathy Parashis, who defeated seventh seed Ramona Belmont of New Zealand 3-0.
Uma Devi will face sixth seed Pan Xiaoting of China in the round of 16.
The third Indian woman, Chitra, failed to join the other two in the last 16, losing to Singapore's Varsha Majmudar 1-3 (74-37, 43-54, 24-56, 11-60).
