Pankaj Advani Biography

Pankaj Advani is a world-renowned snooker player from India. He holds the record of being the youngest national snooker champion at the age of 17. He is the second cueist to win both the billiards and snooker amateur world titles.

In the year 2005 he achieved a historical feat by becoming the first player to win both the Time and Points format titles in the IBSF World Billiards Championship in Malta. He is the recipient of the 2005-2006 Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna, the highest sports award in India.

Pankaj Advani was born on July 24, 1985, in Bangalore. He received training in snooker from former World number four Arvind Savur for ten years. At the age of 10 years, his acumen for snooker came to the notice of Arvind Savur at the Karnataka State Billiards Association Hall. He used to go there to give company to his elder brother.

In the year 2000, he won his first Indian Junior Billiards Championship title and then went on to win it again in 2001 and 2003. In 2003 he won the India Junior Snooker Championship which made him the youngest National Snooker champion. In the same year, he won the 2003 IBSF World Snooker Championship title in China. In 2005 he won the IBSF World Billiards championship thus becoming the second cueist after Paul Mifsud of Malta to win both the billiards and snooker amateur world titles. By defeating Devendra Joshi in the Points format and seven-time world champion Geet Sethi in the longer format of the 2005 IBSF World Billiards championship he became the first player to win in both the formats. For Pankaj Advani, the best is yet to come.