Pankaj Advani: The Golden Boy

In a country like India, where cricket is considered as a religion, Pankaj Advani, a young lad from Pune thrashed away this misconception and driftedmany young Indians to yet another gentlemen’s game: snooker. This snooker prodigy has been crowned as the world champion in English billiards 19 times!
Pankaj Advani started to display his full colors right from the starting of his professional career. He snatched away the India Junior Snooker Championship in the year 2003 and achieved the feat of being the youngest National Snooker Champion. Pankaj Advani’s nifty talent was recognized by former Arvind Savur, who was a former snooker champion.

This juggernaut is blessed with extraordinary skills of the table games, especially billiards and snooker. Pankaj won his first ever international snooker title (the IBSF World Snooker Championship) at a meagre age of 18 in Jiangmen, China. Apart from this dazzling victory, Advani became the youngest Indian to win that title. Furthermore, Pankaj Advani became the face of the game in India. He kept on with his gracious flag mast and won the Amateur World Title in Sherm El Sheik, Egypt by grabbing the IBSF 6-Red World Snooker Championship. In 2017, Pankaj Advani bought another IBSF World Snooker Championship title to his cabinet and proved his excellence.

During his snooker career, Pankaj Advani has defeated top notch players like Steve Davis (world champion for six times), John Higgins (four times world champion), Michael Holt, Craig Steadman, Alan McManus and many more. Apart from these victories, Pankaj Advani won 2 gold medals for India in Asian Games (Doha, 2006 and Guangzhou, 2010). 

Because of this nifty talent in snooker and billiards, the government of India honoured this phenomenal personality with many national awards including the Arjuna Award in 2004, Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award in 2006, Padma Shri Award in 2009 and the Padma Bhushan in 2018.

Pankaj Advani has dominated the Indian Snooker and Billiards and has undoubtedly proven his mettle in a country where no one looked at any game apart from cricket. He should be given credits for the enhanced status of Indian Snooker and Billiards scenario. Kudos to this man!