Pankaj Advani set to feature in All India Snooker Open in Mumbai

Multiple-time world champion Pankaj Advani will take part in the All India Snooker Open to be organized at the National Sports Club of India from January 6-19 in Mumbai.

The tournament, named Baulkline 3.0, has a prize money of Rs 18.5 lakhs and will also feature last year's winner Laxman Rawat, runner-up Aditya Mehta, and national champion Saurav Kothari, who won the inaugural edition in 2022.

Several other snooker players from across the country will also compete in the tournament.

The tournament will start with the qualifying draw with 32 players joining 32 direct participants in the main draw. The main draw will commence on January 13.

Pankaj Advani won his 27th world title recently but was stunned in the National Billiards Championships by his counterpart Sourav Kothari weeks later.

Prominent names in the qualifying draw are Sparsh Pherwani, Mahesh Jagdale, Rovin D'Souza, Nitesh Madan, Hasan Badami, Shivam Arora, and Siddharth Parikh.

Dhvaj Haria, Vishwajeet Mohan, Anuj Uppal, Subrat Das, Vijay Nichani, Piyush Kushwa, Shahbaaz Adil Khan, Hrithik Jain, and Girish Rajasekar are also set to feature in the qualifying draw.

The winner of the competition will get Rs 5 lakh while the runner-up will get Rs 2.5 lakh. The losing semi-finalists will each receive Rs 1 lakh, while the four losing quarter-finalists will get Rs 50,000 each.