Fresh from his Asian billiards title win, Kothari blanked Mohammed Abdel Moneyiam of Egypt 4-0 and also outplayed Kuwait's Nasser Bomejdad 4-0 in the six-red individual event.
Chawla, who recently won bronze in Asian snooker, beat Ahmed Al Taweel of Iraq 4-0 while Dharminder Lilly and Faisal Khan also won their respective matches.
Chennai cueist Rafath Habib may have lost his battle to Morocco's Alal Minun Himad but stole the show with a scintillating 73 break.
The cueists also made their mark in the team 15-Red snooker event with Chawla and Lilly combining well to outplay the local duo of Latiff Wassiky and Haythan el Fayouni 4-1.
Kothari paired with Shivam Arora to beat the South Korean duo of Park Hongpyo and Hwany Chulho 4-1.
But, in one of the few dampner's of the day was Pankaj Advani and Brijesh Damani's 3-2 loss to Jamie Clarke and Gareth Allen respectively.