SINGAPORE - Peter Gilchrist fell at the last hurdle in his bid for a fourth world title on Friday night (Oct 26) after he was beaten 1134-944 by India's Sourav Kothari in the final of the World Billiards Championship long-format competition.

The five-hour match was played in two sessions of 21/2 hours each with a short interval in between, at the Northern Snooker Centre in Leeds, England.

Gilchrist, who had won the title three times before, in 1994, 2001 and 2013, had trailed Kothari 609-371 at the end of the first session.

But the 2014 Singapore Sportsman of the Year rallied to pull back to within two points of his rival (772-770) midway through the second session.

However, Kothari was able to rebuild his lead and hang on to it.

The event was played in the long format, where players who score the most points over a set time win.

Group and last-32 games were 90 minutes long, last-16 matches were two hours long, the quarter-finals were three hours long. The semi-finals were four hours long, played over two sessions of two hours.

In the group stage, Middlesborough-born Gilchrist won all four of his matches, beating Scotland's Paul McGowan (523-214), Australia's Peter Tankard (603-211), and Englishmen Roy Denson (1069-38) and Mick White (759-191).

He beat another two Englishmen in the next two rounds. First he saw off Nathan Mann 513-173 in the last 32, before beating Nalin Patel 681-365 in the last 16.

In the quarter-final, Gilchrist beat India's Alok Kumar 748-729, and in the semi-final he beat yet another Englishman, Robert Hall, 883-846.

But Kothari proved his match in the final, and claimed the £3,200 ($5,667) winners' purse.

Gilchrist, who was not available for comment, settled for £1,600.

The Singaporean will next turn his attention to the International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) World Billiards and Snooker Championship in Yangon, Myanmar, from Nov 12-18, where he triumphed in the long format in 2016 after beating Kothari in the final.