After two days of intense Group matches and playoffs, the 2021 United States National Snooker Championship is now going into the knockout stage of the event at the New York Athletic Club (NYAC), with the defending champion and number one seed Ahmed Aly Elsayed on track for a record sixth title.

The winner of each Group advanced directly into the round of 16, with the second and third placed players having to battle out a playoff match in order to earn their round of 16 berth.

Aly swiftly progressed through Group A with three wins from three matches to book his place in the round of 16, where he will now face Dharma Hemnani who came through his playoff tie after finishing in third place in Group B.

The number two seed Raymond Fung suffered a shock first Group B match loss to Amitabh Seth. The Californian went on to win his following two matches to claim his round of 16 spot, but the 2017 Champion did secure second place and defeated Washington's Mike Dominguez in their playoff tie.

Fung has now set-up a repeat of his 2019 Championship semifinal against Cheang Ciing Yoo, where he will be looking to avenge his 4-1 loss to the number four seeded player who won all of his Group D Matches.

The two-time Champion and number three seed Ajeya Prabhakar topped Group C undefeated, and he will now take on New York's Tim Lee in the round of 16 who came through his playoff match after finishing runner-up in Group E.

Two home player NYAC members topped their Groups to go direct into the round of 16, with the former Championship quarterfinalist Ian O'Mahony winning Group G, and Attila Kerenyi on his Championship debut heading-up Group H.

Also to progress from Group H in second place was the 2006 Championship runner-up Romil Azemat, with the player from Arizona going on to seal his appearance in the round of 16 after a swift 2-0 success in his playoff match against New York's Kawarjit Chandyok.

The round of 16 draw as follows:

Round of 16 (Best-of-5 frames)
Match ID
R16-1	Ahmed Aly Elsayed (New York) 1	vs.	Dharma Hemnani (New Jersey)
R16-2	Attila Kerenyi (New York)	vs.	Li Hua Chen (New York)
R16-3	Cheang Ciing Yoo (Washington) 4	vs.	Raymond Fung (New York) 2
R16-4	Kevin Wong (New York)	vs.	Arif Mahmood (Illinois)
R16-5	Amitabh Seth (California)	vs.	Sridhar Shrinivasan (Pennsylvania)
R16-6	Ian O'Mahony (New York)	vs.	Keith Zhen (New York)
R16-7	Ajeya Prabhakar (California) 3	vs.	Tim Lee (New York)
R16-8	Luzhou Sha (New York)	vs.	Romil Azemat (Arizona)

The round of 16 matches will be played over two sessions starting at 10am and 1pm local Eastern Time, with the winners then progressing to the quarterfinals commencing at 5pm local Eastern Time.

The semifinals will take place from 10am local Eastern Time Sunday, followed by the final at 3pm local Eastern Time.

SnookerUSA.com will report on all the results from the Championship.