Pankaj Advani Wins 12th World Billiards Title

Pankaj Advani outplayed England's Robert Hall 1928-893 in the final of the IBSF World Billiards championship (timed format) here on Wednesday night to complete a grand double.

The 29-year-old, Bangalore-based Advani had won the title in the points format (150-up) last week.

Advani, who took a stranglehold of the match leading 746-485 at the half-way mark, thus became the first player ever to win titles in both formats thrice, following his double in 2005 and 2008.

Advani capped a phenomenal year that saw him win the World 6-Red championship besides the World Team billiards championship before the double here that took his individual haul of world titles to 10.

Despite the wide margin of victory over Hall, Advani, returning to topflight billiards after a break of two years during which he spent time on the professional snooker circuit, had to work hard as he was only too aware of Englishman's ability for big breaks.

Advani, who made tournament high breaks of 701 and 575 earlier in the competition, opened up a sizeable lead in with a best break of 289 and then made fruitful visits to the table to eventually break Hall's challenge.

Hall, in fact, spent more time off the table and it did affect his rhythm as his best break of the final was a 92 as compared with his highest run in the tournament, 406 besides five double centuries.

Advani said: "I made Grand Double in 2008 in Bangalore, but it is always great to win outside home and I just can't describe my emotions now because it has been crazy here. I have also worked really hard to win some of the major tournaments this year."

The results (final - 5 hours): Pankaj Advani (India) beat Robert Hall (Britain) 1928 (63, 185, 85, 92, 123, 94, 182, 289, 145, 94, 93, 59, 58, 62, 90) - 893 (89, 64, 64, 86, 92, 64).