Carlow (Ireland), Apr 26 (PTI) Veteran Martin Goodwill of England scored a shock win over reigning champion Sourav Kothari in the final Group ‘A’ league match of the IBSF World Billiards Championship here on Sunday.
Goodwill, 63, registered a nail-biting 276-275 victory to finish his league engagements with an all-win record.
Despite the defeat, Kothari too made the knockout pre-quarterfinals with two wins from three matches.
The fluidity Kothari showed in his previous match — when he annihilated Akhilesh Mohan of France 825-40, which included a monumental break of 515 — was missing.
He struggled to get going and made far too many errors, allowing the Englishman a free run.
Elsewhere, Pankaj Advani, looking to regain the title, topped Group ‘B’ with three wins, all lopsided victories.
In his final match, Advani outplayed South Korea’s Baek Minhu 785-161 with notable runs of 162, 88 and 389 in the 90-minute encounter.
Other Indians to join Advani and Kothari in the knockout last-16 stage were: Dhruv Sitwala, Alok Kumar, Rupesh Shah, Shrikrishna S, Siddharth Parikh and Rafath Habib.
Besides Advani, southpaw Sitwala has been the impressive Indian cueist on view.
The Mumbaikar defeated Ireland’s Aonghus McAnally 621-169. He opened with a break of 203 and had further runs of 90 and 133. PTI UNG TAP
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