India’s most accomplished cueist Pankaj Advani (ONGC) continued with his impressive winning streak in the city. The dapper Bengaluru-based billiards maestro produced another steady performance to overcome S. Shrikrishna (BPCL) by an 822-520 point margin in the final of the Khar Gymkhana presents CR Realty-Western India Billiards and Snooker Championships 2024, played at the Khar Gymkhana billiards hall on Sunday.
The winner of 27-time World champion Advani, has now won six successivetitles in the city in the past two years. He won both the Classic billiards and snooker tournaments in the last two editions at the Cricket Club of India and early this year he had clinched the NSCI Baulkline 3.0 tournament.
Advani was presented with the handsome champions’ trophy and the winners’ purse of Rs two lakhs while Shrikrishna received the runner-up trophy and a cash award of 1.20 lakh. The losing semi-finalists Dhvaj Haria and Shahyan Razmi got Rs 60,000 each.
Both Advani and Shrikrishna started tentatively and struggled to stitch together big breaks initially. The match also did not rise above expectations as there were just half a dozen substantial breaks in the entire three-hour contest.
The champion Advani compiled a sequence breaks 57, 120, 62, 86, and 56, while Shrikrishna managed a solitary effort 94.
Earlier in the semi-finals, Advani showed his class and gave Mumbai’s talented teenager Shahyan Razmi a good exhibition of precision play while executing the winning and losing hazards and making contact with the balls for the cannons. Shahyan could watch in awe as Advani compiled a double century effort and multiple breaks of 185, 176, 171, 160, and 140 to cruise to a 1320-300 victory with a degree of comfort.
In the second semi-finals, Shrikrishna continued with a fine run of winning form as he once played with plenty of confidence to knock the fight out of Dhvaj Haria (IOCL) by a massive points, difference 953-378 to confirm his spot in the summit round.
The Tamil Nadu cueist Shrikrishna who showed more consistency as compared to the lanky Gujarat challenger Haria produced breaks of 189, 141, 87, 77, 62, 57, and 48. In contrast, Haria managed just a couple of decent runs of 65, 64, 48, and 48.
Results: Senior billiards – Final: Pankaj Advani (ONGC) bt S. Shrikrishna (BPCL) 822-520
Semi-finals: Pankaj Advani (ONGC) bt Shahyan Razmi (Mum) 1320-300; S. Shrikrishna (BPCL) bt Dhvaj Haria (IOCL) 953-378.