National champion Pankaj Advani stormed into the final of the World Snooker Championships, being played in Jiangmen, China, after easily beating fifth seeded Brendan O'Donoghye of Ireland 8-3 in the semi-finals.
The 19-year-old Advani will take on the Saleh Mohammad of Pakistan, who beat Mark Allen of Northern Ireland 8-5 [111-9, 93-4, 13-62, 56-20, 25-88, 6-77, 94-40, 67-42, 14-64, 46-62, 71-23, 62-29, 58-22].
Saleh led 4-3 at the end of the first session.
Banglore-based Advani, who defeated top seed Paithoon Phonbun of Thailand 6-2 in the quarter-finals on Thursday, led O'Donoghue 4-3 at the end of the first session. However, he was just brilliant in the second period as he won the first four frames to claim the tie 80-18, 63-23, 46-65, 74-5, 28-50, 93-7, 65-73, 68-1, 66-57, 63-17, 93-15.
Should he win the final, which will be a best-of-21 frames over two sessions, India's youngest national champion, who won the title at the age of 17, will become only the second Indian after O B Aggarwal to lay his hands on the coveted title.
Aggarwal had won the championship in 1984 at Dublin, Ireland, by defeating T Parson of Wales.
Advani, who was among the four Indian cueists sent to Britain by the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India last month for training and tournament exposure, seems to have immensely benefited by his stint there.
He was trailing 1-4 and 0-3 in his first knock-out round and pre-quarter-final match respectively but kept his cool to turn the course and make it thus far.
