Billiards Career
Advani made his debut at the Asian Billiards Championship 2002, held at Bangalore where he finished as a finalist. Thereafter, he went on to win the International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) World Snooker Championship 2003 in China at the age of 18 years. He also won the IBSF World Billiards Championship in 2005 at Qawra, Malta. He is the only Indian to have won the world title in both snooker and billiards and the only person in the world to win all world championships of the IBSF - Billiards - time and point formats, as well as Snooker, and the Professional Billiards Titles twice (2009 & 2012). In 2005, he achieved a "grand double" by winning both the time and point formats at the IBSF World Billiards Championships 2005, and he repeated the same feat at the 2008 Championships held in Bangalore.
He is also the youngest person to have won all these world titles in both Billiards & Snooker for a record 8 times. Pankaj Advani also remains the only person to have won all 5 Billiards tournaments in a season, a feat he achieved by winning the Junior National Championship, Senior National Championship, Asian Billiards Championship, World Billiards Championship (point format) and World Billiards Championship (time format).
Pankaj Advani won the World Professional Billiards title (WPBSA) held at Leeds in 2009, registering a comprehensive win against the defending and nine-time champion Mike Russell. Advani beat the defending champion 2030-1253 after having an 800-plus lead at the break. He became the first person in the world to win IBSF Snooker and Billiards World Titles along with the WPBSA Billiards World Title. No one in the history of the sport has accomplished this phenomenal feat.
In April 2012, Advani won the Asian Billiards Championship in Goa, India to become the first person in the history of the sport to win 5 Asian Titles. This takes his total tally of International Majors to 16 - 7 Worlds, 5 Asians, 2 Asian Games Golds, 1 Australian Open and 1 Asian Team. It was announced in May that Advani had accepted the Indian wildcard of a place on the main snooker tour for the 2012/2013 season.
In October 2012, Advani won his seventh World Billiards title, comprehensively beating defending champion Mike Russell in the final in the UK.
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