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A rare double for Sourav Kothari in Pacific International Snooker

World billiards champion Sourav Kothari has won the 2022 Lance Pannell-Pacific International Snooker Championship.

In the final, Kothari thrashed top-ranked Australian cueist Johl Younger 4-0 in the best of seven frames, with a high break of 93 in the third frame.

After topping his league, Kothari defeated Australian Cale Barrett 3-1 in the quarters and the talented Charlie Chafe 3-1 in the semifinals, respectively. He last had won the title in 2019, just before the COVID-19 pandemic struck.

A Double

After bagging the Lance Pannell Pacific International Snooker title in Melbourne, Sourav Kothari put up yet another impressive performance to clinch the Pacific International Billiards Championship.

Kothari, 37, has thus joined Matthew Bolton of Australia among cueists to have won both the snooker and billiards events at the Pacific International Championship. Kothari edged past multiple-time English champion Rob Hall of England 1500-1321 in the finals of the Level 5 highest World Billiards ranking event to win the title.

In the thrilling final in Melbourne, Kothari, who won the world billiards championship in 2018, displayed great mastery of cue ball control from the beginning. He notched up breaks of 161, 141, 135 and 117 to take a massive 600-point lead. Hall could manage only a solitary century break of 177 during that session.

But a couple of missed regulation drop cannons by Kothari in the next session saw Hall fight back with a magnificent break of 391 as he reduced the margin to 200 points before overtaking Kothari.          

Steady at having squandered the lead, Kothari showed great calmness and composure under trying circumstances to inch towards the 1500-mark and completed the proceeding with a nicely crafted century break of 111.

Earlier, Hall ousted world billiards champion Peter Gilchrist of Singapore. Kothari scraped past compatriot Dhruv Sitwala in a nail-biting 1200-1131 finish.

He won the ONGC 13th Asian Billiards Championship in 2014, beating Alok Kumar in the final and a gold medal at the 2017 Asian Indoor Games.

He was a runner-up to David Causier at the 2017 World Billiards Championship, losing 4–8 in the short format (150-up) final.

Kothari won the World Billiards Championship in 2018 with a 1,134–944 victory over Peter Gilchrist. In the semifinal, Kothari had been more than 500 points behind Causier before coming back to win.

In 2019 Kothari again reached the world championship final, finishing runner-up by 1,307–967 to Gilchrist. 

Kothari also won the 2019 Reventon Masters against Johl Younger (6-5) and Reventon Classic against Tyson Crinis (5-1), two tournaments of the Reventon Triple Crown series.