Geet Sethi pulled off a narrow victory against Asian Games champion Pankaj Advani in the final round to annex the Senior National billiards title after nine years, in Bangalore, on Monday.
The veteran cueist won 1087-923.
Sethi, who last won the title in 1998 in Kolkata, led 624-354 after the first session, chalking up breaks of 198 and 113. Advani could manage just on century break, of 148, in the period.
There were no noteworthy breaks in the second session as both players struggled to maintain top of the table play. The 45-year-old Sethi came up effective runs of 72, 96 and 92 while Advani fought back to stay in the hunt.
Advani said he got his chances late in the match and a little more accuracy could have helped him clinch the title.
"I got my chances too late in the match. I was never in the game as such. I was always struggling and always playing catch-up to him. When you play catch up in billiards it's not easy to play," he said.
"I just felt that if I had played with a little more precision and accuracy I could've pulled it off. But I'm happy that I fought back in the second session despite being down by 300 points," said Advani, whose breaks of 103, 97 and 97 later went in vain.