Pankaj Advani pulls out of Asian meet

World snooker champion Pankaj Advani decided to pull out of the Asian Snooker Championship scheduled to be held in Thailand from May 8-15.

Advani and Yasin Merchant were slated to leave for Thailand on the May 7 but the champion cueist decided to withdraw on Saturday.

“Though I pulled out for personal reasons but safety was also a concern,” he said. India will still be competing at the championship with Yasin Merchant confirming his participant and Sourav Kothari being named as the replacement for Advani.
However, Advani will start his Nahar-MIG All-India Invitation snooker campaign here on Sunday.

Meanwhile upsets seemed to be the order of the day on Day 1 of the snooker championship with second seed Geet Sethi comprehensively being beaten by fourth seed Devendra Joshi 0-4 in what was a highly anticipated match. Yasin Merchant’s preparation for the Asian Snooker Championship didn’t start off on a bright note as he lost to Sundeep Gulati 2-4. Sourav Kothari and Manan Chandra made solid breaks of 100 and above to register wins.

Results: Sourav Kothari bt Girish 4-2, Shahbaaz Adil Khan bt Gaurav Prabhu 4-0, Kamal Chawla bt Lucky Vatnani 4-2, Manan Chandra bt Rishabh Pandya 4-3, Devendra Joshi bt Geet Sethi 4-0