Joshi storms into final

Ninth seed Devendra Joshi of Maharashtra stopped the dream run of giant-killer Rushabh Thukral of Delhi with a 6-1 victory on way to the final of the all-India Invitational Snooker Championship at the NSCI in Mumbai on Friday.

Former national champion Joshi came up with two important breaks, in the fourth (73) and the seventh (59) frames, to record an easy 55-45, 70-27, 66-32, 73-23, 65-48, 21-70, 74-44 win over Thukral, who had accounted for 13th seed and double Asian Games gold medallist Ashok Shandilya of Railways in the earlier round on Thursday.

Joshi will taken on tenth seed Sarang Shroff in the final.

Shroff was taken the distance by Punjab's Alok Kumar before prevailing by six frames to five.

Shroff squandered leads at 4-2 and 5-3 before winning at  63-60, 55-67, 22-58, 83-42, 62-52, 70-20, 58-59, 64-9, 40-55, 36-64, 53-44.