Pankaj Advani survived a scare before beating New Zealand's Gary Oliver in a league encounter of the ONGC IBSF World Billiards Championship in Bangalore on Tuesday.
The 23-year-old local boy prevailed over his dogged opponent 3-2 (101-151, 151-98, 117-151, 152-0, 151-107), but not before some tense moments in an edge-of-the-seat match at the Karnataka State Billiards Association hall.
But other Indians including Geet Sethi, Sourav Kothari, defending champion Rupesh Shah and Devendra Joshi had no such difficulty and scored emphatic victories.
Results: (League matches): Geet Sethi (India) bt Mohammed Aslam (Sri Lanka) 3-0 (150-69, 151-61, 150-23); Sourav Kothari bt Darren Taylor (New Zealand) 3-0 (152-6, 151-72, 151-65).
Devendra Joshi (India) bt S M Shaharwardi (Sri Lanka) 3-0 (150-92, 151-22, 152-35); Rupesh Shah (India) bt Arvind Savur (India) 150-104, 150-63, 150-18).
B Bhaskar (India) bt Alok Kumar (India) 3-2 (96-150, 150-48, 71-150, 150-120, 150-74); Shyam Jagtiani (India) bt Larry Drennan (Ireland) 3-1 (150-71, 150-26, 121-150, 150-73).
Peter Gilchrist (Singapore) bt Thanh Long Nguyen (Vietnam) 3-0 (153-11, 151-116, 150-83); Prem Prakash (India) bt Boon Aun Keith E (Singapore) 3-0 (151-28, 150-112, 150-60).
Dhruv Sitwala (India) bt Raghoo Sinha (India) 3-0 (151-37, 151-10, 150-87); Thawat Sujaritthurakarn (Thailand) bt Md. Asim (India) 3-0 (150-48, 152-124, 151-108).
Brijesh Damani (India) bt Wayne Carey (New Zealand) 3-0 (151-105, 151-144, 150-8); Aidan Murray (Ireland) bt Philip Mumford (England) 3-1 (48-152, 150-50, 150-40, 150-79).
Suriya Suwannasingh (Thailand) bt Calum Hossack (Scotland) 3-0 (150-38, 150-36, 152-36); Praprut Chaithanasakun (Thailand) bt Thanh Binh Nguyen (Vietnam) 3-2 (77-151, 152-145, 151-86, 128-151, 150-104).
Teik Chong alan Puan (Singapore) bt Michael Wright (Europe Billiards Open Series) 3-0 (151-27, 151-53, 150-72).
