NEW DELHI, JAN 17: Second seed Ashok Shandilya takes on Railway teammate and former winner Shyam Jagtiani while former Asian champion Yasin Merchant meets Sarang Shroff in an all-Maharashtra affair in the semifinals of the National Senior Snooker Championship here.Unseeded Jagtiani won the last black in the decider to topple third seed Alok Kumar (Punjab) 5-4 in a thrilling last quarter-final while last year's runner up Shandilya carved out a facile 5-2 win over Siddharth Rao of Tamil Nadu.Shandilya beat Rao 11-73, 59-47, 74-0, 78-0, 70-9, 13-61, 82-0 while Shroff downed Harish Gandhi (MP) 75-24, 72-6, 73-38, 29-89, 78-8, 54-42.Jagtiani rallied from two frames down in the best of nine clash and then withstood a ding-dong battle before winning at 15-70, 64-77, 70-61, 76-57, 9-62, 67-18, 65-24, 36-70 and 65-57.Former Asian amateur champion Yasin Merchant rode on his safety play to fight from 2-4 down to beat fourth seed Dharmendra Lily (Pun) in another exciting tussle that went full distance. TheMumbai cueist won 47-57, 65-7, 71-17, 15-53, 43-92, 52-76, 75-39, 64-21, 74-35.
