Kamal Chawla kept India afloat by advancing to the men’s quarter-finals of the IBSF World Snooker Championship while Pankaj Advani, Yasin Merchant crashed out along with all the home players in the women’s category.

On a disastrous day for India, Chawla was the only saving grace as he beat Cyprus’s Anthony Brabin 5-2 to move to the next stage. Brabin had earlier ousted India’s biggest hope Advani. Advani lost 59-77 45-70 11-71 73-44 55-65 62-02 65-30 23-67. Brabin was impressive right from the word go and led by three frames before Advani fought back and won three of the next four frames. Advani, though, lost the eight frame, and then Brabin struck a break of 54 in the concluding frame.

After outclassing compatriot Alok Kumar 5-1 in the second round, Merchant lost his pre-quarterfinal by the same margin to Brazil’s Igor Figueiredo.

Lucky Vatnani will meet Scotland’s Anthony McGill in the pre-quarterfinal on Saturday.

In the women’s event, Meenal Thakur lost her quarter-final 58-13 49-40 70-39 46-72 23-44 54-42 to Kathy Parashis of Australia. Chitra M was outplayed 90-66 40-84 70-32 60-39 75-38 by Ramona Belmont of New Zealand. All three Indian participants for the day in the Masters’ event — K Ranjan, Devendra Joshi and BVS Murthi — also bit the dust, leaving Geet Sethi the lone Indian representative.