Indian cueists made their presence felt on the opening day of the World Six-Red and Team Snooker Championship as Sourav Kothari and Kamal Chawla won their respective matches with ease, here today.
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.
In the women's 6-red event, Umadevi and Vidya Pillai won their respective encounters, while Chitra Magimairaj had a mixed day with a win and a loss.
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.
