Merchant, who had smooth sailing throughout the tournament was pushed up the wall by D Lily but finally managed to keep his unbeaten record intact in the snooker round robin matches.

Merchant raced to a 3-0 lead on line with his fine form in the tournament, firing breaks of 80 and 43 along the way. However Lily gave the match a new twist claiming the next three frames. A repeat of the last Calcutta Nationals looked on cards where Merchant had lost to Lily also in the quarters. But the experienced Merchant made no mistake this time to win 4-3.

In a match befitting the final, Merchant meets Devendra Joshi in the quarter-final on Tuesday. Joshi also booked his berth with a hard earned win over prodigal Rupesh Shah. Winning the first three frames, it looked like Joshi had made short work of Shah who is on a high afterwinning the Garware Club House Open, a prelude the Alpic-Om Agarwal. Three frames later Shah was back in the game with scores reading 3-3.

But experience overruled youth and Joshi made his way into the last eight.In the remaining of the billiards round-robin matches, Subhash Agarwal won and lost one but made it to the billiards quarter-finals. Ashok Shandilya managed to hold back Agarwal who looked in fine nick with a double century break. But later Agarwal rallied to beat Calcutta's M Kothari and qualify for the semis.

Tomorrow will be the rest day.

QUARTER-FINAL LINE-UP

Billiards: Rupesh Shah vs Ashok Shandilya; Roxton Chapman vs Devendra Joshi; Yasin Merchant vs B Bhaskar; Geet Sethi vs Subhash Agarwal.Snooker: Rafad Habib vs Amit Saboo; Ashok Shandilya vs Roxton Chapman; Geet Sethi vs MS Jokar; Devendra Joshi vs Yasin Merchant.

RESULTS (Round-robin matches)

Snooker Group A: MS Jokar bt M Chandra 4-3 (45-25, 6-62, 43-96, 53-46, 25-65, 75-38, 63-49); Devendra Joshi bt Rupesh Shah4-3 (56-37, 60-57, 64-44, 28-63, 8-97, 51-59, 66-41).

Group B: Siddharth Rao bt Nalin Patel 4-1 (76-7, 65-48, 42-77, 72-38, 95-13); R Habib bt M Shahab 4-2 (49-79, 53-37, 62-52, 46-52, 75-48, 54-13).

Group C: Roxton Chapman bt Kamal Tulshan 4-3 (66-35, 68-20, 30-51, 58-51, 42-73, 25-72, 65-32).

Group D: Geet Sethi bt Amit Khansaheb 4-2 (28-73, 23-67, 80-1, 69-16, 78-33, 68-27; Yasin Merchant bt D Lily 4-3 (81-80, 59-2, 76-24, 16-78, 59-73, 66-73, 82-32).

Billiards Group D: Arun Shandilya bt Subhash Agarwal 794-608; Subhash Agarwal bt Manoj Kothari 777-461.