An ace cubist, Pankaj Advent, has enjoyed a good run since tournaments resumed after the coronavirus-induced break. The lockdowns left the 36-year-old ‘hungrier’ and made the recently-crowned World Cup winner realize that this is something he loves doing and would never take it for granted.
Pankaj, who has won the World and Asian snooker crown multiple times, stamped his supremacy at the GSC World Snooker Qualifiers by winning all 12 matches (6 each in the Y-Camp and Z-Camp). He accumulated 10,760 points (3,560 National points, 3,600 points each from Y and Z Camps) to take pole position. He will now be representing India in the World Snooker Championship in Doha Pankaj’s winning streak began with the National Championship in 2020, including the recent 24th world title at 'the'. I BSF 6-Red Snooker World Cup held in Doha. Speaking to the Indian Express, Pankaj talks about how lack of tournaments during the lockdown changed his perspective and left him wanting to put himself out more, the misconceptions related to the sport and the difficulty of switching to Billiards from snooker. In every sport, in every athlete’s career, there are ups and downs. This is a very different kind of momentum because we have played tournaments with gaps of six months due to the pandemic situation. Particularly, the International tournaments and the World Cup happened after two years. So I was even more hungry, even more keen to play, very grateful for the opportunity to finally be able to travel oversees and represent the country. The icing on the cake was to win two gold medals for India, which by my own standards was kind of unexpected. I don’t have the baize green at home. I was out of action, even in practice, for a while. Even for the International ones in September, I had one month to prepare. I was perhaps the most under-prepared ever for the event. But I put in the hours, worked on my physical fitness. The first lockdown, we thought that this would be a matter of a few months and things would return to normal. But then the second lockdown was enforced, and it hit all of us. For a sports person, it is very difficult to deal with staying away from the game or travelling because there is no other life that we really know. The first lockdown was of course a welcome break. But then there were a lot more serious things to think about, especially with what the world is going through – the economy, health, losing loved ones. Everyone has lost somebody to Covid that they were close to. So our priorities changed for a while and in a way brought perspective. It made me more hungry and made me realize that this is something I love doing and to never take it for granted. Fitness actually plays a big role in our sport, contrary to what the general perception of it is. People think you don’t need to be strong or need too much fitness and that it’s just a cue you’re striking balls with. But there is so much that goes into it, the details. I have had back pain since 2018, a problem which seems to be coming back in phases, and then it disappears, and I work on it. Invariably, 99% of the snooker/billiards players have back issues if they have been playing for over ten years.
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