Doha, Mar 14 (IANS): Defending champion Pankaj Advani started his campaign for the Asian Snooker Championship 2022 by winning two consecutive matches on day one.

Advani is in Group A with Mansour Alobaidli from Qatar, Mohamed Thaha Irshath from Sri Lanka and the recently crowned World Snooker Champion Pakistan's Ahsan Ramzan.

Advani, who has already won 10 Asian titles, easily defeated Thaha by 4-2 in the first match. The 36-year-old Indian started with a break of 52 to win the first match but lost the second. Later he won the next two frames to lead 3-1 and after that Thaha crafted a break of 55 to cut the deficit but again Pankaj won the 6th frame with a decent margin to seal the match 4-2.

His second match was against Mansour Alobaidli from Qatar where Pankaj was in a different zone. After winning the first frame, he was on fire and crafted breaks of 50 & 58 in the second frame, 110 in the third and 75 in the fourth frame to close the match proceedings in less than an hour.

After winning two matches, the winner of Major Dhyan Chand Khel Ratna award in 2006, said, "Happy to start the Asian Championship on a winning note. My young opponent was high on confidence after two good performances in the World Championships (Junior and Senior) so it was never going to be easy. Glad to get over the line."