Pankaj renews tryst with billiards giants

MUMBAI: Putting behind his worst-ever spell in cue sport in August, Pankaj Advani will once again gun for the World Professional billiards title he won for the first time last year when the event opens in Leeds on Wednesday.Advani escaped the ignominy of being analso-ran at the Pune, the crazy month-long schedule which had the IBSF worldsand Nationals derailing him. He won one of the four titles, the nationalsnooker.Afterwards Advani had reflected, "After a crazy schedule ofa month when one had to play four major events in one city, finally I had shown consistency that counted in snooker."He then explained, "This consistency isn't always reflected in the results. Sometimes it shows, sometimesit doesn't. With the kind of schedule we had the quality of our play wasaffected."After chilling out Advani is game for the peaks thatfollow later in the year. After the Leeds event are the all-important AsianGames where he will be defending his Gold in Billiards Singles which he won atDoha. Finally, in December this year there is the IBSF World Snooker inSyria.He had won this World Title in 2003 in China. Last year atHyderabad he only reached the round of 32.Advani always lovesplaying against Russell and Gilchrist. "It is fun to compete with them. It isthe highest level of the game."Advani pays tribute to Russell forhis hunger for winning."His Floating White is amazing and he'sworked very hard on that one department of his game which has made himdangerous."Advani shouldn't fellow-Indians Geet Sethi and Ashok Shandilya who can beat him plays dark houses Devendra Joshi, Rupesh Shah, and Dhruv Sitwala who has entered the EBOS (European) final at Leeds ousting Peter Gilchrist on Monday.