Ashok Shandilya won the Asian Billiards Championship which was held in Bangalore, India, from 18th-24th March 2002. This was only the second running of the Billiards competition, with the previous event having been held sixteen years ago in 1986. On that occasion it was won by Geet Sethi and he was in the line-up again as part of a strong Indian representation who had been brought together in a special "training camp" in preparation for the event.
The week-long Championship, sponsored by Om Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance, was played under the 100-up format and also included representatives from Thailand, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Indonesia, and Myanmar (formerly Burma). However, it was the Indians who dominated the competition filling all four of the semi-final places. Both of these matches produced unexpected results as Ashok Shandilya defeated Geet Sethi in a contest which went to the deciding game, and wildcard entry Pankaj Advani produced a confident display to beat India's No.3 Devendra Joshi by four games to two.
Earlier in the competition Advani had registered his first ever win over Shandilya when he produced a 3-2 result in the group stages, but in the final he could not quite repeat that performance and was narrowly defeated 4-3 by the Indian Champion.
Quarter-finals
Devendra Joshi (India) bt U Kyaw Oo (Myanmar) 4-1; Pankaj Advani (India) bt Dhruv Sitwala (India) 4-1; Geet Sethi (India) bt Alok Kumar (India) 4-2; Ashok Shandilya (India) bt Henry Boteju (Sri Lanka) 4-2.
Semi-finals
Pankaj Advani (India) bt Devendra Joshi (India) 4-2; Ashok Shandilya (India) bt Geet Sethi (India) 4-3.
Final
Ashok Shandilya (India) bt Pankaj Advani (India) 5-4