Cue sports loses champion Manoj Kothari: 1990 World Billiards winner and coach dies at 67

KOLKATA: In Indian sport, the Kotharis are a rarity — a family with two generations having won the world title in the same sport.On Monday, Indian cue sports became poorer with the passing of Manoj Kothari, a former world champion, coach and father of current champion, Sourav, in a Tirunelveli hospital, near Chennai.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!The 67-year-old had undergone a liver transplant 10 days ago, and succumbed to a massive cardiac arrest in the hospital. Kothari is survived by wife Neeta and Sourav, both of whom have established themselves in the game, and daughter Shreya.

In 1990, it was Manoj lifting the World Billiards Championship title that helped in greatly popularising cue sports in India. That he won the title as a wildcard entry at the Bengaluru event added to his legend.

Manoj would soon turn pro after this success, while 35 years later, son Sourav emulated him with a professional world title in 2025. Sourav had won the title as an amateur in 2018.In 1997, Manoj won the World Doubles Billiards Championship, and while future cueists would know him as a renowned billiards coach, the foray into sports began with table tennis at a club near his ancestral house in north Kolkata. Like any young boy, curiosity drew him to other sporting facilities there and saw the billiards table for the first time. Perhaps a dark room with a conical light illuminating the table created a magical effect on the young mind and he soon started playing it.He himself once stated that “I never began playing to become a champion”. Being a mechanical engineering student from Jadavpur University, the deflection of the ball and the curving made sense to him easily.