Favourite Devendra Joshi quelled Mukesh Rehani by a comfortable 5-1 margin to book his place in the semi-finals. He now meets fifth seed Yasin Merchant.

Another day, another time, the story would have been different. But not today. Lady luck favoured the Railways' Sportsman of the Year Shandilya who pipped Rafat on the black-ball tie-break and the former was ecstatic. ``I'm relieved,'' said a bubbling Shandilya after the match.

The match would not have stretched to it's full quota of nine frames had it not been for some gritty display by the sixth seed Rafat. The 28-year-old rallied from a two-frame deficit to equalise the frame scores and take the match to the decider.

``I had faith in myself but never expected to be stretched so far,'' revealed the second seeded Shandilya.

The deciding frame too headed toa nail biting finish with Shandilya managing to keep marginally ahead of his Railway team-mate. The match would have ended there had Shandilya not missed the pink on two occasions.

Rafat, on his part, made no mistake. Displaying nerves of steel, the Chennai cueist pocketed the last two balls to level scores at 63.

``Going into the tie-break, the only thought bothering me was how I missed the pink on two occasions,'' quipped Shandilya. Rafat did make a brave effort when he went for a difficult shot but the black just kissed the wall at the top pocket and returned. But having an easier position of the black did not matter much to Shandilya.

``The thought that the black ball is now worth Rs 8,000 kept bugging me. But I was fortunate to scrape through'' said the burly cueist whose opponent had to settle for Rs 7,500. Shandilya will now meet the winner of Chirag Ramakrishnan-Alok Kumar match.

JOSHI CRUISES: While Shandilya did not expect his quarter-final ride to be such a rough one, Nationalchampion Joshi did not expect it to be so smooth.

``Mukesh is a very good player. And I am happy to have beaten him by such a margin,'' said Joshi.

Seeded 16 places below Joshi, Rehani was surely the underdog and the pressure was very much on him to perform. This probably burdened him as his play lacked the edge he had shown in the league ties.

After having displaced fourth seed Dharminder Lily in a play-off yesterday to finish second in Group D, the Rehani-Joshi clash was very much a let down.

Joshi was confidence personified as he went about his game. And had he not missed a blue in the third frame at 44-42, it would have been a clean sweep. ``I need to concentrate more,'' admitted Joshi, who managed to score three half-century breaks (53, 57,50). ``It might have been a bit easy today but every game cannot be the same,'' he said.

Merchant survived an early scare from unfancied Antim Singhi in a late quarter-final match when the latter won the fourth frame 67-40 to level scores. But Merchantrallied strongly to record breaks of 55, 60 and 56 in consecutive frames to dash Singhi's hopes.

SHANDILYA'S DILEMMA: Even if Shandilya were to win the semi-final tomorrow, his final appearance is still in doubt. The Inter-Railway meet at Baroda, in which Shandilya is expected to participate, starts on Saturday, the day of the NSCI final.

``My employees (Railways) have asked me to play there (Baroda). So I am not sure what to do. I guess I will just ask them to exempt me from the first day of the meet,'' hoped Shandilya.

RESULTS (Quarter-finals)

2-Ashok Shandilya bt 6-Rafat Habib 5-4 (79-25, 32-93, 75-42, 33-59, 65-22, 63-5, 54-63, 49-60, 63-63 -- frame won in tie-break); 1-Devendra Joshi bt Mukesh Rehani 5-1 (98-22, 86-58, 44-73, 85-35, 75-28, 75-35); 5-Yasin Merchant bt Antim Singhi 5-2 (42-58, 65-54, 65-31, 40-67, 71-39, 85-25, 75-10).