ISBF World Billiards championship: Sourav Kothari puts out Pankaj Advani in last 8
Bengaluru: A huge relief spread across Sourav Kothari’s face after he put on a stunning display to oust overwhelming favourite Pankaj Advani 1000-644 in the quarterfinals of the Long-Up format of the ISBF World Billiards championship at the Karnataka State Billiards Association on Wednesday.
Kothari, determined to avenge his loss to Advani at the same tournament back in the 2008 Worlds here at KSBA, made perfect shots as he stopped the Advani juggernaut in its tracks.
Kothari overcame the costly miss of the red pot before emerging winner and setting up a semifinal clash with compatriot Dhvaj Haria, who defeated Myanmar’s Aung Htay in another quarterfinal.
Advani who had not lost a single match in the tournament cruised to a solid lead of 200 points, just half an hour into the match, with opening breaks of 66 and 172. Despite lagging behind, Kothari crafted a break of 198 to bounce back into the game.
The two rivals went neck-to-neck before the reigning national champion scripted a break of 293 to move into a massive lead. The 32-year-old Kothari was on the verge of victory, but similar to 2008 he misjudged the shot as he missed the red pot.
The Results
Quarterfinals: Sourav Kothari (Ind) bt Pankaj Advani (Ind) 1000 (55, 198, 68, 181, 293, 51 unf.) -644 (66, 172, 96, 68, 65, 100); Dhvaj Haria (Ind) vs Aung Htay (Myn) 1001 (81, 68, 133, 121, 157, 87) -677 (61, 80, 88, 69, 85, 73); Peter Gilchrist (Sing) bt Robert Hall (Eng) 1000 (164, 83, 93, 144, 138, 87, 97, 100) -347 (91, 131); Rupesh Shah (Ind) bt S Shrikrishna (Ind) 1002 (118, 91, 216, 74, 68) -646 (85, 110, 72, 50).
Pre-quarterfinals: P Advani bt Alok Kumar (Ind) 750 (130, 157, 86, 50) - 547 (99, 69, 69, 99); S Kothari bt Jaiveer Dhingra (Ind) 750 (208, 133) - 432 (66, 89); A Htay bt Chit Ko Ko (Mmr) 750 (72, 87, 59, 56, 70, 114, 60) - 697 (104, 63, 100, 55); D Haria bt Shankar Rao (Ind) 750 (86, 104, 107, 131, 79) - 381 (64); S Suryanarayanan bt B Bhaskar (Ind) 750 (81, 83, 51, 122, 90, 50) - 721 (57, 58, 325, 50, 57); R Shah bt Siddharth Parikh (Ind) 750 (56, 200, 101, 113, 89) - 470 (143); P Gilchrist bt Soheil Vahedi (Irn) 750 (86, 157, 212, 56) -299 (87, 67); R Hall bt Dhruv Sitwala (Ind) 752 (73, 60, 64, 83, 119, 108, 91) - 632 (62, 79, 230, 69).
