PROFESSIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP QUALIFIERS
The qualifying sections for the World Professional Championship were staged at venues in England and India, the former providing three qualifiers and the latter, five.
ENGLAND
Manhattan Club, Harrogate (29th March 2001) Most of the higher placed English players took part in the qualifying stages with the exception of Rex Williams (ranked 16), who now seems to have retired from the game, and Mark Wildman (20) who as Chairman of the WPBSA probably had more pressing matters demanding his attention. Clive Everton (22) was also absent and Eugene Hughes (25) did not bother to make the trip from Ireland. Of the six players who did enter, there was a new recruit to the Gary Rogers: new recruit to the professional ranks in the form professional ranks of Gary Rogers from York. He was drawn against Ian Williamson, who after a slow start, effectively sealed the match with a break of 217, the highest of the day. Peter Sheehan also put in a couple of century breaks as he overwhelmed Andrew Sage. Paul Bennett, despite suffering the after-effects of inoculations taken in preparation for his trip to India, also qualified easily against Brian Dix.
INDIA
Bombay Gymkhana, Mumbai (8th-9th April 2001) The qualification group in India was arranged to be played immediately prior to the Competition Proper to allow Rom Surin to make just one trip from Thailand, but as it transpired, he decided not to make the journey and the field contained only Indian competitors.
One of these ties threw up a particularly exciting match when Ashok Shandilya defeated Rupesh Shah by a mere 16 points. Veteran player, Subhash Agrawal, reappearing on the professional circuit after an absence of several years, also managed to go through, but his brother Arun went out to the youngster Dhruv Sitwala. Alok Kumar put up a good performance to defeat No.13 ranked Manoj Kothari, but the star performance came from Devendra Joshi who made a string of breaks to beat Mukesh Rehani 1,025-311 in their two hour match.