IBSF World Snooker Championship: Pankaj Advani pins his 18th world title

Doha: Ace Indian cueist Pankaj Advani dished out another superb performance to outclass Iran’s Amir Sarkhosh in the finals and claim yet another title at the IBSF World Snooker Championship here on Monday.

His deadly attacking game coupled with phenomenally tight safety play helped Advani to secure his 18th World Championship title with a 8-2 win over Amir at the Al-Arabi Sports Club.

The best-of-15 frame final witnessed Amir pocketing the first frame rather comfortably.

The Iranian looked strong and focused in the second frame too, progressing well and nearing a 2-0 scoreline, but a missed green pot gave a lifeline to Pankaj as he seized the opportunity with both hands and drew parity. Pankaj never looked back from there as he raced to a 5-2 lead. He, however, survived a scare in a close battle in the 4th frame.

A massive break of 134 by Amir in the 6th did not faze the Indian as he immediately widened the lead to 5-2 before going into the 1st session break.

A long red pot against the nap with a perfect position for blue saw him draw first blood after the interval with a break of 45.

Couple of safety exchanges later, Pankaj once again trapped Amir with a perfect snooker to extract an opening. Another long red pot spectacularly executed saw him make another useful break of 17 points to increase the margin leaving the cue ball in an unplayable position.

A hapless Amir couldn’t do much as his wild shot in frustration saw Pankaj come back to table once again to seal the frame with another break of 41 points and take a commanding lead of 6-2.

The Result: Pankaj Advani (India) beat Amir Sarkhosh (Iran) 8-2 (19-71, 79-53, 98-23, 69-62, 60-05, 0-134, 75-07, 103-4, 77-13, 67-47)