NEW DELHI: 2009 was truly a memorable year for Indian cuesports with the 'smiling assassin' Pankaj Advani hogging the limelight with his maiden World Professional Billiards title triumph at the young age of 24.
The quiet Advani, who let his performance talk, beat nine-time world champion Mike Russell of Qatar in the final of World Billiards Championship at Leeds in September to become the only second Indian after Geet Sethi to lift the coveted trophy. Sethi, who won the title in 1992, was beaten by Advani in the pre-quarterfinals.
Much to the surprise of many people, three Indians made it to the semifinals and it could well have been an all-India affair in the final but Rupesh Shah went down to Russell in the semifinals after a valiant fight.
"It was a huge milestone that I had achieved. It's great for the game of billiards and it's great for all the cueists of the country," said Advani, who won the World Snooker Championship title in 2003 in Beijing, China.
Advani then went on to win the National Billiard and Snooker titles in Agra. He out-potted Saurav Kothari 6-3 to complete a hat-trick of national snooker titles and then claimed his third consecutive billiards' title, defeating veteran Sethi 5-4 in an epic final.
This was soon followed by a bronze medal success in the third Asian Indoor Games in Vietnam.
Early in the year, Advani lifted Asian Billiards Championship trophy in Pune, defeating Peter Gilchrist of Singapore 5-3 in a best of nine frames final.
In recognition of the laurels he brought to the country, the Bangalore-based Advani was conferred with Padma Shri, India's fourth highest civilian honour.
Advani now has 10 international titles to his kitty. He is perhaps the only sportsperson in the world to have won seven world titles by the age of 24.
In November, India became the proud hosts of the IBSF World Snooker Championship in Hyderabad, a tournament which returned to the country after a gap of 28 years, where once again Advani and Sethi led the Indian charge.
But this time around, success eluded Indian cueists with only Kamal Chawla reaching the quarterfinals in the men's category.
Advani crashed out in the second round in the men's category while Sethi suffered a shock defeat at the hands of unheralded Costas Konnaris of Cyprus in the masters' quarterfinals.
Apart from Advani's bronze in the third Indoor Asian Games in Vietnam, Delhi's Manan Chandra came agonisingly close to winning a medal, but lost to Chinese Taipei's Yu Lun Wu in the bronze medal play-off in the 6-Red snooker category.
However, the young brigade of Aditya Mehta, Manan Chandra and Brijesh Damani fetched gold for the country in the Team event, defeating Qatar.
PTI
