In the other semi-final, Devender Joshi of Maharashtra defeated Mohd Asim 1146-1070.

Shandilya, who stunned Geet Sethi in the quarters on Thursday, led for a fair part of the game. The lead however was small, it was 81 points after 42 visits, which was midway through the second two-hour session. But Alok, who without being spectacular has been consistent, came up with a break of 69 on the 43rd visit and closed the gap. Then came a 53 on the 46th and a 134 on the 50th visit and it put Alok in the lead. The score then was 858-725 and from thereon the gap kept widening and Shandilya's play deteriorated. ``The balls were just notrolling for me. I played badly,'' said a disappointed Shandilya.

In the other semi-final, Devender Joshi admitted to some lapse in concentration as he kept one eye on the close match between Alok and Shandilya. He was at one point leading by about 280 points, but that lead was whittled down to about 30-40 points. Mohd Asim came up with some good break likes 108 on the 35th and 92 on the 41st. Earlier he had 97 on the 12th and 105 on the 14th. But Joshi once again increased his lead with consistent play and managed to eke out a 1146-1070 win.

Late last night, Joshi upstaged B Bhaskar 930-699 and Asim downed Prem Prakash 1114-655 in the last two quarter-finals.

In the matches for minor placings, Geet Sethi finished fifth, B Bhaskar was sixth, Prem Prakash seventh and Arun Aggarwal eighth.

The final will be played in two sessions, the first at 10 am and the second at 1.45 pm.

DOUBLE FOR MANAN: Manan Chanda became only the third player and the first since 1981 to win the junior double of billiards andsnooker in the National championships. The 18-year-old Manan, who won the snooker title in 1997 and then finished last year, retained the title with a all-win record in the four-player semi-final league. He defeated Neeraj Kumar 4-1 (65-28, 33-54, 83-3, 92-11, 86-8) in his last league match after having earlier beaten Rishabh Thukral and Ritesh Shah.

In billiards, Manan beat Amit Sharma 984-766 in his last semi-final league match after having beaten Omar Balsara and V Sanghvi in his earlier matches.Only two other players, Sandeep Chawla and Geet Sethi have achieved the junior double. Sethi did it in 1980 and 1981, the year Manan was born.

``Though I won the double, I was a little disappointed at not having been able to go further than the last 16 in the senior snooker,'' said Manan, who will now represent India in the World Under-21 snooker championships later this year. India is bidding to hold the event.