Advani, Alok, Sethi qualify for IBSF World Billiards Championship

Seven-time world champion Pankaj Advani will spearhead the Indian challenge at the IBSF World Billiards Championship to be held in Carlow, Ireland next month.

Advani, the reigning national snooker champion, finished on top of the heap in the selection trials that concluded here on Tuesday.

Apart from Advani, reigning national billiards champion Alok Kumar and veteran Geet Sethi also qualified for the event to be played from August 23 to September 1.

Although the 25-year-old Bangalore ace suffered a reverse at the hands of B Bhaskar in the middle of the trials, Advani soon got his act together to finish with five wins in the seven-player field.

Advani won his last three games to reaffirm his supremacy on the green baize.

In the last edition of the tournament played in India, Advani was defeated by legendary Qatari cueist Mike Russell 0-6 in the Point format of the championship.

In 2008, Advani had won both the titles in the Point and Time formats, defeating compatriots Geet Sethi and Devendra Joshi, respectively.

Advani managed a total of 10760 points based on his performances in the national championship (3560 points), selection trial-I (3600) and selection trial-II (3600), to claim numero uno status in the rankings.

Alok, who halted Advani's three-year unbeaten run at the Nationals in the billiards final, managed to hang on to the second spot in the standings despite his mediocre show in the qualifiers, where he finished lowly seventh, courtesy his two wins from six outings.

Sethi was third in the qualifiers with three wins and equal number of losses. He finished on the third spot in the overall standings to make the Ireland sojourn.

The three-time Asian billiards champion Advani recently won G Raman Nair handicap billiards tournament last month defeating his Karnataka state-mate 1001-443 in the title clash at the ECA Club in Bangalore.

Final standings (after selection camp): 1. Pankaj Advani, 2. Alok Kumar, 3. Geet Sethi, 4. Dhruv Sitwala, 5. Rupesh Shah, 6. Ashok Shandilya, 7. B Bhaskar, 8. Shyam Jagtiani.