Merchant, Chawla in for All India Open Snooker

Mumbai, July 20 (IANS) Former two-time Asian champion Yasin Merchant and India No.2 Kamal Chawla have confirmed their participation in the Shyam Shroff Memorial All India Open Invitation Snooker Tournament to be held here from July 25 to August 10.

The tournament will be organised and hosted by Khar Gymkhana with United Phosphorus as the sponsors.

Also in the fray will be last year's runner-up Shahbaaz Khan of Petroleum Sports Promotion Board (PSPB), Faisal Khan of Railways, India junior No.1 Laxman Rawat of Delhi, Maharashtra No.1 Hasan Badami, Kolkata boy Sourav Kothari and India No.7 Manan Chandra, both of PSPB, India junior No. 2 and senior No. 5 Himanshu Jain of Hyderabad and national 6-Red champion Shivam Arora of Bihar.

The qualifying rounds will be held from July 25 to August 4 from where four players will enter the main draw out of 24 which will be played from August 5 to 10.

The round robin main draw will have four groups of six players each and the top two from each group will qualify for the quarterfinals.

The round robin will be played over best-of-seven frames, quarterfinals and semi-finals over best-of-nine and the final over best-of-11 frames.