Group play at the 2022 United States National Snooker Championship has come to a conclusion following two long days of intense action, with all four seeded players advancing into the round of 16 knockout stage of the event at Ox Billiards in Seattle.

With 34 group matches to be played on four tables on each of the two days, play commenced at 9am Friday with the number one seed and defending champion Ahmed Aly Elsayed facing Jacky Wei. It has been a good past year for Aly since he won his record sixth title last year at the New York Athletic Club, with his victory in Toronto, Canada, at the Seniors Event of the Pan American Snooker Championship and his subsequent appearance at the Crucible in Sheffield, England, playing in the World Seniors Snooker Championship.

However Aly got off to a shaky start and lost his opening group tie 2-1 to the Californian, who then went onto win Group A undefeated and for the loss of that just one frame. Aly did find his form though and went on to win all his remaining three matches 2-0, firing in a break of 93 along the way, to secure that all-important runner-up spot.

The number two seed Raymond Fung started his campaign for a second Championship title Friday with two swift Group B match victories and looked on course to top the group, but he lost his third group tie on Saturday 2-0 to New Jersey's Dharma Hemnani who went on to win the group undefeated. A third group match win for the 2017 Champion from Brooklyn, New York, insured he progressed by claiming second place.

The twice former champion and last year's losing finalist Ajeya Prabhakar, playing as the number three seed, won Group C undefeated after his four matches, and he will be joined in the round of 16 from the group by New York's Alfred Tinger who forged three match victories.

The reigning Seattle Snooker Open champion and number four seed Cheang Ciing Yoo has safely booked his berth in the round of 16, as the 2019 Championship runner-up won all four of his Group D matches played over Friday and Saturday. The player progressing with Yoo from the group is John Poon, as the Californian shook off that first match 2-1 defeat by the Washington player to win his following three ties.

Group E featured the son of the late Tom Kollins of who the Championship trophy is named in honor of, but Tommy Kollins's two group victories just fell short of allowing him to progress from the group as he finished in third spot. Rajneesh Bansal from Illinois won the group with four straight match wins, and the group's second qualifying spot was taken by California's Steven Wong who scored three match successes.

Romil Azemat has moved into the round of 16 of the 2022 Championship, sixteen years after he was defeated in the final by the late Paul Kimura. The owner of the Arizona Snooker Academy comfortably went undefeated in Group F, with New York's Li Hua Chen securing second place.

Sridhar Shrinivasan and Amitabh Seth both finished Group G with two match wins from three matches to advance, but it was Shrinivasan who claimed the group's top position due to a better frame difference and he did defeat his Californian opponent 2-0 in their tie.

Group H included the only woman competitor in this Championship, and she came within a hair's breadth of advancing from the group. Frances Tso, who is a well-known pool player on the Seattle scene, only took up snooker earlier this year and played in last month's U.S. Women's Snooker Open at Ox Billiards. She lost her first match, though scored an excellent 2-1 win over Arif Mahmood who actually went onto win the group. In a very tense encounter in her final group tie against Varun Raheja, the Texan won an exciting battle on the final colored balls by pocketing the last pink for a 2-1 victory and a place in the round of 16 at Tso's expense.

For all the group match results and final placings, please visit Cloud Snooker:
» 2022 United States National Snooker on Cloud Snooker

The round of 16 draw as follows:

Round of 16 (Best-of-5 frames)
Match ID
R16-1	Jacky Wei (California)	vs.	Amitabh Seth (California)
R16-2	Arif Mahmood (Illinois)	vs.	Alfred Tinger (New York)
R16-3	Cheang Ciing Yoo (Washington) 4	vs.	Li Hua Chen (New York)
R16-4	Rajneesh Bansal (Illinois)	vs.	Raymond Fung (New York) 2
R16-5	Dharma Hemnani (New Jersey)	vs.	Varun Raheja (Texas)
R16-6	Sridhar Shrinivasan (Pennsylvania)	vs.	John Poon (California)
R16-7	Ajeya Prabhakar (California) 3	vs.	Steven Wong (California)
R16-8	Romil Azemat (Arizona)	vs.	Ahmed Aly Elsayed (New York) 1

Matches R16-1 to R16-4 will commence today Sunday at 10am local PDT (12pm EDT), with the remaining round of 16 matches scheduled to start at 1pm local PDT (4pm EDT).

All four quarterfinal ties will also be played today too, and they are scheduled to commence at 5pm local PDT (8pm EDT).

For live coverage from Ox Billiards in Seattle, click on the following links:
» Live streaming coverage courtesy of the Ox Billiards YouTube Channel
» Live scoring from Cloud Snooker