Sourav Kothari

Calcutta: Like father like son. Sourav Kothari, son of former IBSF World Billiards champion Manoj Kothari, turned professional this year and within few days he has qualified for the World Professional Billiards meet to be held at the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds from July 18-22.

The other Indians who will be in fray are defending champion Geet Sethi, Ashok Shandilya, Devendra Joshi, Pankaj Advani, Dhruv Sitwala and Alok Kumar.

The senior Kothari had won the amateur title in 1990 and turned pro the next year. But Sourav decided to go for the professional hunt only at the age of 22.

“I am in very good form and expect to do something noteworthy in the world meet,” Sourav told The Telegraph on Tuesday.

Since Sourav is playing both snooker and billiards, he is scheduled to take part in a snooker meet in Mumbai in June-end.

“Till June-end I will play both snooker and billiards but after that I will concentrate only on billiards before leaving the city on July 15,” the junior Kothari said.

Talking about his plans after the Mumbai meet, Kothari said that he would devote five-six hours a day on board. “Dad will be here and he would do all the fine-tunings in the 15 days,” he revealed.

The management student of the IISWBM had recently made his highest break of 523 while practising at the Bengal Rowing Club for the world meet.

“During the last few days, I have been playing really well and if I can keep this up, you can expect a surprise in July,” he said.

Sourav is expecting tough challenge from the cueists from England, Chinese Taipei, Thailand.