“Yesterday was my best day ever since I started playing competitively two years ago,” says Badami, who is also No. 2 among the juniors in the state. “Members of the club and my friends kept calling me. I was so overwhelmed, I never imagined I could do this,” he added.

There were more thrills in store for Badami. As he finished his match, Yasin Merchant, the twice Asian champion greeted and praised him. “If you continue to play like this, you are destined to go places,” Merchant had told him. “Yasin Sir has always encouraged me and I was delighted that I justified his faith in me,” says Badami.

Badami got hooked to playing pool when he was in ninth standard at St. Joseph, Mazgaon. “One of my friends, Sarfaraz used to frequently play at the parlours and one day he took me to one such place, and since then I started liking pool,” recalled Badami. But once Badami cleared the Xth class and moved to Lala Lajpat Rai College at Haji Ali, his good times with the pool game came to an end as pal Sarfaraz went to another college.

“They were very strict about attendance at Lala. For the next two years I didn’t play much. But then I shifted to Hinduja College at Charni Road, when I cleared my 12th,” says Badami.

A parlour right in front of his new college renewed Badami’s romance with pool. “I used to play well and win very often,” he says. But one day his father came to know about his passion with the game. “He told me if I played so well, I should pursue the game seriously. He is a member of Islam Gymkhana and asked me to play there and learn the game the right way.”

Once at the right place and at the right time, Badami’s game started improving by leaps and bounds. “I took part in the State selection tournament in 2006 and reached semis in my very first big event,” he says. That year Badami reached last eight at the Nationals held in Bangalore and his transformation from a parlour-going kid to a reputed national level player was complete.