India's Advani, Sethi, Rupesh for Asian billiards

NEW DELHI: Multiple world title-winning cueists Pankaj Advani and Geet Sethi along with Rupesh Shah will represent India at the seventh Asian Billiards Championships in Yangon, Myanmar, starting April 5, it was announced here Saturday.

Ravi Tandon, vice-president of the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India, also announced that Shravan Mohta, Manish Jain and Shoaib Khan were picked for the ninth under-22 Asian Snooker Championships, to be held concurrently in Yangon.

Manoj Kothari will be the coach of the billiards team and Sundar Jairaj will guide the snooker team.

The teams were selected after a national camp that concluded in Shillong Wednesday.

Both teams will leave for Myanmar April 3.

"Advani and Sethi have been nominated first and second players respectively and they will be in different halves of the draw while Shah has got a direct entry and will be clubbed along with the qualifiers," said Tandon.

Players from 16 countries and region - Bahrain, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Iran, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam and host Myanmar - will be taking part, Myanmar Billiards and Snooker Federation had announced earlier.

Two billiards players and two snooker players each from one country or a region can participate in the championships, to be held at Kandawgyi Palace Hotel, while host Myanmar is allowed to field five players each.

Top Myanmar cueist Kyaw Oo, who will be competing in Yangon, had beaten Advani, a former world champion, in the knockout stage of the World Billiards Championship in Singapore last year.