Karachi
Veteran cueist Mohammad Asif outperformed his old rival and another senior player Mohammad Sajjad 7-4 to win the 3rd Ranking Snooker Championship in Karachi.
It wasn’t the final fans would’ve wanted to witness as both the players made several missing on certain pots. However, fortune favored former World Champion Mohammad Asif in the end.
He cued-off the best-of-13 frames final with 2-0 lead, before Sajjad leveled it 2-2. Even in first two frames, Sajjad looked in good position and took advantage before missing blue in first frame and a red-ball in second to give Asif opportunity of clearance.
Sajjad, after going down two frames in start, regained his control and won four of next five frames and got 4-3 lead at the end of 7h frame.
But, in 8th frame, Sajjad made some mistakes and Asif got maximum advantage of it to level the competition 4-4 before the lunch break. Sajjad started confidently post lunch but after taking a good lead, he missed a red and allowed Asif to come back and win the frame.
Asif then didn’t allow Sajjad play comfortably in next to frames to wrap up the final with a win of 7-4. His overall score in the final was 61-53, 64-62, 36-78, 13-89, 83-27, 11-54, 38-61, 69-49, 69-64,55-13 and 68-14.
This was third national-level final between two top cueists of countries with Asif now improving his over-all finals’ record against Sajjad to 3-0. The top seeded cueist got 100,000 PKR for winning the title, while the runner-up was handed a cash prize of 40,000PKR. Naseem Akhtar received the award for the highest break for chalking 134 during the tournament.—Agencies
