Melbourne: Defending champion Sourav Kothari on Friday continued his spectacular show to outperform multiple-time world champion Mike Russell of England in the semifinal and book his second consecutive World Billiards (long-up) final here. Such was Kothari's dominance in the game that with 45 minutes remaining on the clock in the four-hour semi-final, Russell conceded the match apparently due to not having enough time remaining for him to overcome the huge deficit of nearly 600 points.

In the end, Kothari prevailed 1090-594 with breaks of 205, 195, 175, 128 and 103, whereas Russell made breaks of 247, 131 and 121. The key highlight of the semifinal which gave Kothari a huge push and rattled Russell was a break of 195 in reply to a break of 247 by virtue of which the Kolkata lad brought parity in the scoreline just before the mid-session interval.