Defending champions Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are set to revive their rivalry in the K A Nettakallappa memorial South Zone Inter-state billiards and snooker team championship, which will be held on Saturday and Sunday at the Karnataka State Billiards Association hall here.
 The event, being revived after a long gap of 21 years, will also see Andhra Pradesh vie for top honours. Kerala and Pondicherry have not sent in their entries.
On paper, the hosts look very strong indeed with the likes of captain B Bhaskar, Arvind Savur, D Rajkumar and G Kishore Kumar in the billiards team and  B V Srinivasa Murthy, Bhaskar, Duncan MacKenzie and Rajkumar in the snooker team. While there is no doubting the ability of Murthy and Bhaskar, MacKenzie can spring a surprise on his day. And one can never write off the class of ‘Tornado Fats’.
“Our team is definitely good. I think we are the favourites to win the title,” said Bhaskar. “We have a good team which means we have a good chance of winning.
“Tamil Nadu has a good snooker team and their billiards player Prem Prakash is good. But if we make a man-to-man comparison, I think Karnataka have the edge.”
Karnataka have won three snooker and two billiards titles so far in the history of the tournament, their last triumph coming in 1985 when they annexed both billiards and snooker titles.
However, there is some doubt about Murthy’s participation as he is down with fever. “If I am better by Sunday when the snooker is going to be played, I can make it,” snooker team skipper Murthy said.
Though Tamil Nadu will be without Busan Asiad gold medallist Rafath Habib (billiards), S A Saleem and Nadeem Ahmed (both snooker), they are still confident about retaining their title. “We have players like Prem Prakash, who can do really well for us,” said team captain and manager S K N Rajamohan. “Karnataka have a good team but we will give them a good fight.”
Apart from Prakash, TN will field Bhuvaneshwar, Varun, Girish, Lokanathan, Nigel Lazer and Kamaraj. As for AP, their main player would be youngster Lucky Vatnani.  Their success would depend on the whole team clicking as all four players are playing in both events.  The billiards event will be played on Saturday and the snooker ties on Sunday.
The winners will get Rs 10,000 and the runners-up Rs 5000.