Pankaj Advani had a tough time against New Zealand's Gary Oliver yesterday

It's the knock out stage today in the 2008 ONGC IBSF Point Format World Billiards Championship underway at the Karnataka State Billiards Association here in Bangalore. With the league matches concluding with only one aberration - the loss of defending champion Rupesh Shah to Devendra Joshi, the last 16 line up was made at a open draw with all players present after a process of re-seeding the cueists on the basis of their performances in the league matches.  Yours truly gets top billing, Gilchrist is seeded 2, Sitwala 3 and Joshi 4.

The pick of yesterday's matches was Pankaj Advani's narrow 3-2 win over New Zealand's Gary Oliver.

Considering the ominous form displayed by the winner of three IBSF billiards titles on the opening day, one was a bit surprised to see him trail 1-2 against an inspired Oliver.

The 1-2 deficit was the result of dogged and consistent scoring from the New Zealander, who refused to be overawed by either his younger opponents reputation or his early break of 96 in the opening game. 

But as he has proved on so many occasions, Advani dug deep and uncorked a fluent 152 unfinished to draw level at 2-2 and then held his nerve to clinch the decider 151-107 aided by a carefully constructed 108.

Praprut struggles

Like Advani, Thailand's Praprut Chaithanasakun, who had exhibited sublime form on the opening day overcame stiff resistance from Vietnam's Thanh Binh Nguyen to win 3-2 in a high quality contest. Nguyen is a carom (billiards on a pocketless table) expert, who has adapted quickly and competently to billiards in the last three years. He troubled Pankaj Advani by leading 2-0 before being defeated 3-2 in the first round of the 2006 Doha Asian Games and is providing substantial evidence of becoming a serious threat to the established players in the point format.

My own quest for an elusive point format world title continued with a comfortable 3-0 victory against Sri Lanka's Mohammed Aslam. A break of  88 in the sixth visit of the opening game and an unfinished 120 in the third were the highlights of the one-sided contest.