The four seeded players, headed by defending champion Sargon Isaac, have all dominated the group play of the 2016 United States National Snooker Championship at the 147 Snooker Club in Houston, Texas, to secure their passage through to the knockout rounds.

Group play got underway Friday morning which sparked off two days of intense competition for those trying to battle their way into the knockout rounds of the Championship.

The two-time champion Isaac, who is attempting to become the first player to successfully defend the title since Ahmed Aly Elsayed in 2011, won all four of his Group A matches for the loss of just one frame and with it booked his place directly into the quarterfinals.

The number two seeded player Ajeya Prabhakar was also in fine form in Group B as he tries to win a third Championship title. The Californian also won all of his four matches for the loss of one frame to win the group and advance into the quarterfinals.

The third seeded player is the aforementioned Aly, the three-times former champion who advanced into the knockout rounds of the Men's Event of last year's International Billiards & Snooker Federation (IBSF) World Snooker Championships, made easy passage into the knockout rounds of this Championship. The player from from Brooklyn, New York, won all five of his Group C ties for the loss of just one frame to make his appearance in the quarterfinals.

The twice Championship runner-up Raymond Fung also claimed his spot in the quarterfinals, as the number four seeded player compiled a break of 73 on the way to winning all four of his Group D matches for the loss of three frames.

A preliminary knockout round over the best-of-five frames will be played Sunday for all those players who finished second and third in their groups, with the winners going forward into the best-of-seven frames quarterfinals to play the four group winners.

The Preliminary Knockout round draw as follows:

Preliminary Knockout (Best-of-5 frames)
Match ID	Player		Player
PK1	Cheang Ciing Yoo (Washington)	vs.	Jeff Szafransky (California)
PK2	Kevin Wong (New York)	vs.	Ian O'Mahony (New York)
PK3	Laszlo Kovacs (New York)	vs.	Mohammed Ajmal (Texas)
PK4	Rizwan Khan (New Jersey)	vs.	Jonathan Royalty (New York)

Quarterfinals draw as follows:

Quarterfinals (Best-of-7 frames)
Match ID	Player		Player
QF1	Sargon Isaac (California) 1	vs.	Winner Match PK1
QF2	Raymond Fung (New York) 4	vs.	Winner Match PK2
QF3	Ajeya Prabhakar (California) 2	vs.	Winner Match PK3
QF4	Ahmed Aly Elsayed (New York) 3	vs.	Winner Match PK4

Full coverage of the Championship will continue here on SnookerUSA.com.