Underdog Kothari of ONGC shocked India No. 2 Kamal Chawla in a 5-4 thriller to storm into the final of the Bombay Gymkhana Strokes Snooker Invitational Open Tournament on Tuesday. Kothari won the five-hour marathon best-of-nine frames semi-finals with the final score reading 69-60,53-22,55-64,39-63,55-77,57-20,61-29,21-65,65-36 for a surprise entry into the championship round. He now awaits the winner of the other semi-final between India No. 1 Aditya Mehta and double Asian champion Yasin Merchant. In a riveting contest that was full of twists and turns,Kothari got off to a dream start with a 2-0 lead while opening up with a break of 69 in the first frame after trailing 0-60. That effort inspired him to enhance the lead and put Chawla under early pressure. But the experienced Chawla bounced back to surge to a 3-2 lead with brilliant potting and positioning that has earned him the sobriquet Mr Consistent on the circuit. Though Kothari came back to snatch a 4-3 lead,an unperturbed Chawla forced the decider with a significant early break of 47 in the crucial eighth frame that ended prematurely when he missed a simple red. Kothari replied with a break of 21 until he too missed the red in the centre. An early break of 26 in the deciding ninth frame helped Chawla to a 36-30 lead with three reds and the colours remaining. But his fortunes changed with an unfortunate red in-off that allowed a cautious and careful Kothari to return to fire a well constructed break of 35 to snatch the frame and match on the pink. Results Semi-finals: Kamal Chawla (Selvel) bt Sourav Kothari (ONGC) 69(69)-60,53-22,55-64,39-63,55-77,57-20,61-29,21-65,65-36; Quarter-finals: Kamal Chawla (Selvel) bt Manish Jain (WB) 75-25,86(65)-37,38-67,71-23,74-9; Sourav Kothari (ONGC) bt Brijesh Damani (Indian Oil) 60-8,83-32,42-71,70(55)-0,5-64.
