Pankaj Advani, Geet Sethi & Alok Kumar for world billiards

Pankaj Advani, Alok Kumar and Geet Sethi will represent India at the World Billiards Championship which will commence in Carlow, Ireland, from August 23.

The trio was selected following the overall ranking of three camps, which were held in Pune, Ahmedabad and Bangalore. Advani ended his campaign with a top billing, while Alok and Sethi finished second and third respectively.

On the final day of the Z Camp held here at KSBA Hall, Advani beat Dhruv Sitwala 3-1, while Sethi overcame a deficit of losing the first frame 29-151 to beat Alok 3-1 in a crucial game. The experienced Sethi was on top of his game in his second game on Tuesday where he fought Sitwala’s challenge with brilliant potting to win 3-1.

The match was fought intensely and it could have gone either way with Sitwala gaining his momentum in the second frame by winning the frame 151-123, which included a break of 77. But Sethi battled it out relentlessly to win the following frames 152-32, 150-64 to qualify.

Alok, on the other hand, mostly known for his heroics in pool, has shown tremendous growth in his game in all forms including billiards. He had shocked Advani in the National Championship as well as Asian Billiards

Championship to win the title and since then he has continued to stay in lethal form. Despite losing both his matches to Sethi and Advani, Alok stayed in contention thanks to his performance in the previous camps. Meanwhile, though, Rupesh Shah showcased a determined game throughout camp Z to finish second, it was not sufficient to earn the World Championship berth as he is placed fifth in the overall ranking.

“I was quite optimistic of qualifying but it was hard luck I guess because I played good games here,” stated Shah.
KSBA will host the snooker camp starting July 6 between Advani, Kamal Chawla, IH Manudev and Manan Chandra.