22 September 2021 Written By Vivek Pathak
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After a gap of nearly 20 months, due to this ongoing pandemic, Pankaj Advani returned to the Green Baize and has conquered back-to-back two major International titles.
Pankaj came to Doha, Qatar on 10th September to defend his Asian Snooker title and to participate in the IBSF Qatar 6Reds World Cup 2021.
Total 42 participants from 19 countries took part in the Asian Snooker Championship and Pankaj was in Group A with four more players. He stayed undefeated in the group stage and secured a second seed position for the knockout.
In the knockouts, he was scheduled to compete against Tam Yun Fung of Hong Kong whom he defeated 4-2. Later in the higher stages, he knocked out Ali-Jalil of Iraq 5-3, Cheung Ka Wai of Hong Kong also 5-3 to reach the finals.
In the final, he met Iranian player Amir Sarkhosh whom he defeated earlier also in the World Championship 2017 and here too he knocked him out 6-3 to successfully defending his title.
On the next day, Pankaj started his campaign for the IBSF Qatar 6Reds World Cup for the winner's prize money of 12000 USD.
Here he was placed in group C with the players from Germany, Belgium and Qatar whom Pankaj defeated to be in top-four seeded players.
In the knockouts, he first defeated Ryan Cronin of Ireland 6-2 and then his compatriot Ishpreet Singh 6-2, Amir Sarkhosh 6-3 to reach the final.
The final was played between Pankaj Advani and the Pakistan player Babar Masih. Initially the final appeared to be one-sided when Pankaj had obtained the lead of 6-2 but he got serious tension when Babar won the series of frames and reduced the gap to 5-6.
However, Pankaj recompiled his focus and crafted a break of 32 points in the 12th frame to claim his second international title in this trip and his 24th world title.
