According to information reaching here, the 18-year-old Delhi lad, who was a member of the Indian team which took part in the Asian Games last December, will play his semi-final against Rodney Goggins (Republic of Ireland) later tonight.

Two other Indians, Ritesh Shah (Mumbai) and another Rishabh Thukral (Delhi) lost in the pre-quarter-finals and round of 32 respectively.

Manan, a fast and aggressive player topped his seven-player pool remaining unbeaten and winning all six matches to enter the last 32. Seeded seventh in the tournament, Manan who lost in the round of 32 in the World U-21 event last year, beat John Sutton (Rep of Ireland) 4-2, Nicholas Heseltine (Eng) 4-2, Andre Jung (Ger) 4-2, Sebastian Fizek (Austria) 4-0, Ahmed Saeed (Egy) 4-3 and Tero Suwanto (Fin) 4-2. In theround of 32, clashing against John Bevan (Wales), Manan was in full flow and outplayed his rival 4-0.

And then came two performances that showed Manan's mental strength. Down 2-4 against Ben Farnworth (New Zealand), the Indian lad rallied to win the next three frames and with it the pre-quarters match 5-4.

In the quarter-finals, Manan pitted against the second-seeded Davies in the tournament, was once again trailing 2-4 and then 3-5 and was on the verge of being shunted out of the tournament. Once again displaying nerves of steel, he went for his shots and won the next three frames on the trot to emerge a 6-5 winner in the best-of-11 frames match. In the last frame he won 66-63 on the black ball to clinch a place in the semi-finals. The final scores of the quarter-finals in Manan's favour 47-67, 57-63, 53-50, 53-23, 33-81, 48-60, 62-21, 43-58, 63-13, 67-23 and 66-63.

In the semis, he will be against Rodney Goggins (Republic of Ireland).

Ritesh Shah, seeded 12th in the tournament entered the round of32, where he defeated M Zakzouk (Egypt) 4-1. That win set him up against fifth seed, Rolf de Jong (Netherlands), who had beaten India's other entry Rishabh Thukral 4-1 in the round of 32. Shah fought a valiant battle and came close to causing a major upset, before losing 4-5 to De Jong.