The selection camp to pick the Indian girls’ team for the World under-21 snooker tournament to be held in Goa from August 22-31 could be a non-starter.
Lack of entries may force the Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI) to do away with the camp, scheduled to be held at the Karnataka State Billiards Association, confirmed its vice-president S Balasubramaniam.
“Each country is allowed two entries, and with only two players having confirmed their participation for the camp to be held at KSBA from August 4, there is a possibility of the BSFI doing away with the camp," Bala said.  "But there is also a possibility of having the two cueists over at the KSBA for some training or at Goa a couple of days before the event. A final decision on the matter will be taken on Wednesday. We had informed the state associations about the camp, but the response has been very poor."
Only Tamil Nadu's Lavanya and Arantxa Lael Sanchis from Maharashtra have confirmed their entries. Whether the camp is held or not, the two cueists are likely to create history by matching wits with the boys at Goa.
With a view to improving the standard of the women's game, the International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) decided to allow girls and boys to compete against each other in the under-21 event.
Chess, motor racing, horse racing, equestrian and golf are a few sports where the men and women compete against each other. Snooker is the newest entry to that list.
Meanwhile, the billiards and snooker selection camp for the IBSF World Billiards Championships in Singapore and the Macau Asian Indoor Games will begin at the KSBA on August 6.
While the billiards camp will be held from August 6-12, snooker event will be from August 13-17. The selection for the men's and women's pool events will be held from August 17. The top-8 from the Nationals will be taking part in the men's camp, while the top four in the women's events will be on view.
Bangalore's Pankaj Advani, as the reigning IBSF World champion, has got a direct entry into the Singapore bash beginning in September.
The campers:
Billiards: Pankaj Advani, Rupesh Shah, Geet Sethi, Dhruv Sitwala, Ashok Shandilya, Devendra Joshi, Alok Kumar, Bhaskar.
Snooker: Alok Kumar, Yasin Merchant, Pankaj Avani, Rupesh Shah, Manan Chandra, Sarang Shroff, D Rajkumar, Kamal Chawla. 9-ball pool: Manan Chandra, Dharminder Lilly, Shyam Jagtiani, Devendra Joshi, Alok Kumar, Amit Yadav, K Ranjan, A Nanda. 8-ball pool: Devendra Joshi, Sumit Talwar, Rafath Habib, Yasin Merchant, Dharminder Lilly, Arshad, Md. Asim, Harpreet Singh. Women: 9-ball pool: Chitra M, Meenal Thakur, Anuja Chandra, Suniti Damani. 8-ball pool: Anuja Chandra, Vidya Pillai, Neeta Sanghvi, Meenal Thakur.