The "unseen hands" of his late father were also among the forces guiding Sourav Kothari to a back-to-back IBSF World Billiards Championship crown, felt the star from Calcutta.
Kothari, who had won his maiden IBSF world billiards title last year, retained the crown having outclassed 19-time champion Pankaj Advani with a lopsided 1133-477 verdict in the three-hour final in Carlow, Ireland, late on Tuesday evening.
The decider too was about a come-from-behind victory for Kothari, as he dedicated this triumph to his father Manoj Kothari, who passed away back in January.
"It feels like the unseen hands of my father were playing for me. And it was very difficult for me to speak at the prize distribution. All I could manage to say was, 'thank you', because I knew that I was going to completely choke if I were to speak even one extra word.
"So, I just stopped it there and turned my face around to get a moment to myself. So, yeah, it's just incredible the way I won it," Kothari told The Telegraph from Carlow on Wednesday.
Playing like a man possessed, Kothari produced a barrage of breaks to pin Advani down with stupendous runs of 485, 121, 90, 241 and an unfinished 155.
"Pankaj had started off hitting 175. In a final, when the opponent has occupied the first 20 minutes of the game and already raced to such a lead, my reply to that was a 485 break, lasting one hour and two minutes non-stop on the table. So yeah, as I said, it was just incredible the way I bounced back," Kothari said.
Not just in the final, but even in the quarter-final against cuesport elite David Causier of England and in the semi-final against compatriot Dhvaj Haria, Kothari had to play out of his skin to prevail.
"I was down about 150 points against Causier in the very first 15 minutes of the game. With my back against the wall, I turned that match over, making a back-to-back 200 break followed by a 241. In the semi-final, Dhvaj made a 275 break and I was cold and completely down and out. But even from there, I went on to win the game with consistent breaks above 100," Kothari recalled.