Indian cueist accomplishes a rare 21st world title

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He is unique and his achievements are unparalleled, not only in his own sport but also across the global sports scene. When it comes to winning a world title, India's Pankaj Advani is more regular than his country's astronomically popular cricket team's Test match wins.

He is like a Peter Pan in the world of baize and cue. At the age of 33, Advani has just added a 21st world title to his overcrowded cabinet. The erstwhile whiz kid turned icon has accomplished a rare double by winning the long and short formats of the IBSF World Billiards Championship titles for a record fourth time in Yangon, Myanmar.

The baby-faced man with a Zen monk-like calm and composure tweeted his achievement. "Unbelievable week this has been! 2 out of 2 World Billiards Titles won- short and long formats absolutely thrilled to achieve the Grand Double again," he posted on the micro-blogging site Twitter.

While he has always won the timed version of the long format, the more recent short version eluded him over the years. But this time, he has knocked the monkey off his back, edging past his city mate from Bengaluru, B Bhaskar, a two-time Asian silver medalist and a bronze medal winner at the world level.

India's most successful cueist Pankaj Advani has added another feather to his cap by winning the IBSF World Billiards Championship for a record fourth time. /VCG File Photo

Buoyed by his successful defense of his World Billiards (150-Up) title earlier last week, Advani came for the final firing all guns blazing and was on a roll since the beginning of the first session. He started up with breaks of 190, 171, 198 to take a comfortable lead.

On the other hand, Bhaskar crumbled under pressure and was missing the regular shots as he could manage to make only two breaks – 64 and 58. Continuing with the initial lead and the early momentum, Advani made breaks of 165, 92, 66, 66, 89 and 134 to accomplish the job and pocketed the historic title in no time.

Although he had to settle for bronze in the long format last year, the legendary cueist did the unthinkable by winning the billiards short format title and then went on to clinch the snooker title too. Interestingly, he is the only player in the world to play both billiards and snooker at the world level and win in both with great consistency as well frequency.

He had earlier won the second leg of the Asian Snooker Tour in Jinan City, eastern China's Shandong Province, in October this year to set the stage for his double glory in Myanmar.