MUMBAI: National champion Pankaj Advani will lead an elite field of cueists who will feature in the main draw of the Khar Gymkhana Open Invitation Snooker Tournament that gets under way at the Khar Gymkhana from Tuesday.

Apart from Advani, the main draw will include Aditya Mehta, Manan Chandra, Sourav Kothari, Alok Kumar, Yasin Merchant and Rupesh Shah, who finished in that order in the national championships, and junior national champion Shravan Mohta.

This elite group of eight will be joined by four wild cards Devendra Joshi, Ashok Shandilya, Sarang Shroff and Rafath Habib of Railways apart from eight qualifiers.

The qualifiers who have made it to the main draw include Mumbai's Marzdi Kalyaniwala, Lucky Vatnani of Hyderabad, Neeraj Kumar of Bihar, state junior champion Rishabh Pandya, state No. 2 Hasan Badami, Nikhil Ootam, Faizal Khan and Kamal Chawla, both of Railways.

The field of 20 in the main draw, which will be held from March 4 to 9, will include four groups of five players each with the top two players in each group qualifying for the quarter-finals.

The quarter-finals and semi-finals will be held on March 8 and the final on March 9.The winner will receive Rs. 60,000, while the runner-up will earn Rs. 30,000. In addition, the cash prize for the highest break is Rs. 5,000.

THE RESULTS

Final Qualifying Rd:Hasan Badami bt Rovin D'Souza 72-50, 34-58, 68-25, 60-27, 39-59, 58-39; Faizal Khan (Rlys) bt Varun Taneja 64-51, 59-48, 46-79, 62-25, 59-10; Nikhil Ootam bt Divya Sharma 36-74, 100-13, 26-54, 65-8, 68-52, 63-25; Kamal Chawla (Rlys) bt Chandresh Shah 71(60)-23, 69-37, 72-67, 68-1.

Groupings

Group 'A': Pankaj Advani, Devendra Joshi, Shravan Mohta, Kamal Chawla, Neeraj Kumar. Group 'B': Aditya Mehta, Rupesh Shah, Ashok Shandilya, Nikhil Ootam, Faizal Khan. Group 'C': Manan Chandra, Yasin Merchant, Rafath Habib, Lucky Vatnani, Hasan Badami. Group 'D': Sourav Kothari, Alok Kumar, Sarang Shroff, Rishabh Pandya, Marzdi Kalyaniwala.