Winning 20 frames out of a possible 25 in four group matches and losing only three frames, Advani secured breaks of 75, 74, 57 and 47 in his four group matches.
His first group match was against Nezar Aseeri of Saudi Arabia. Pankaj cruised to a 5-0 win against him, winning 53-6, 29-26, 55-16, 30-15, 57-0. His second group match was another clean 5-0 win (78-0, 37-30, 41-5, 57-1, 75-0), this time against his local opponent Bader Obaidi Almehairi.
The fourth group match saw Alijalil Ali from Iraq win three frames despite losing the match 5-3 (17-41, 0-57, 32-1, 3-37, 46-19, 38-25, 34-19) to Pankaj.