Defending champion Devendra Joshi and four other Indians would be seen in action in the $6000 prize money Asian Billiards Championship set to be held at Pune’s PYC club from February 19 to 26.President of the Billiards and Snooker Association of Maharashtra and former three-time world amateur champion Michael Ferreira said India had also sought participation of its three more cueists in the tournament.‘‘We have asked the Asian Confederation of B.billiards Sports, the continental body, to allow us to include three more players apart from Joshi and four others who are definite to take part,’’ Ferreira said.‘‘The qualifying rounds to identify the Indian players to join Joshi is to be held at Chembur Gymkhana in Mumbai from February 8,’’ he added.The front runners for making the grade are newly-crowned national junior and senior champion Pankaj Advani, former world professional champion Geet Sethi and B Bhaskar, according to Ferreira.‘‘Apart from hosts India, six other countries — Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Singapore and Thailand — have confirmed to take part while there’s a likelihood of Syria and Korea too participating,’’ Ferreira said.The round-robin stage would be played as best-of-five 100-point games and the number of games would proportionately increase from the quarter finals onwards, he added.
