World professional billiards champion geet sethi showed glimpses of his top table virtuosity with two century breaks as the top seeded Indian pair of Sethi and Ashok Shandilya trounced the Thai duo of Udon Khaimuk and Suriya Suwannasingh 3-0 in the best of five frames clash to set up a last four clash against Reynaldo Grandea and Ricardo Ancaja of Philippines.

Second seeds and India's No 2 pair of Devendra Joshi and Balachandra Baskar were equally ruthless in defeating Malaysia's Thye-Hong Lee and Chin-Kay Ooi by a similar margin to enter a semifinal clash against Praput Chaithanasakun and Mongkhon Kanfaklang of Thailand.

Indian hopes finally soared at the Muong Thong Thani complex hall in their favouritegreen baize sport as they moved up without much ado. Sethi and Shandilya, the world No 8 pro billiardier, clinched their quarterfinal 3-0 with scores of 150-43 151-0 152-0.

The Indians took the first frame 150-43 before blanking their opponents in the next two frames. Shandilya neatly set up the scene for Sethi with a white pot and the latter reeled off a break of 147 to kill the second frame and then produced another gem of a 122-break with Sethi's renowned top table game sinking their opponents.

Joshi and Bhaskar also won their quarterfinal without conceding a frame. They won 151-112 151-41 150-60 with the Bangalore-based Baskar coming up with a neat break of 76 in the final frame to end the clash in style against Thye-Hong and Chin-Kay.

Sethi and Shandilya will meet the Filipino pair which beat Malaysia's Loon-Hong Moh and Kam-Beng-Ewin Lean 3-1 while Praput and Mongkhon had the better of Taiwan's Hsia Hui-Kai and Hsu Hong-Ming 3-0.