National Ranking Snooker begins today

KARACHI: A total of 25 cueists will be contesting the 3rd National Ranking Snooker Championship 2019 which will be getting underway here at the Karachi Gymkhana on Friday (today).

The details about the one-week event were shared by the top officials of the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) and the representatives of the various supporting institutions in a media briefing at the club’s banquet hall on Thursday. Tahir Ahmed, Managing Director, Jubilee General Insurance, spoke about the proactive engagement of his organization towards the promotion of healthy activities in the society which included patronage of sports.

Alamgir Anwar Shaikh, Co-Chairman, PBSA, expressed the hope that the top performing cueists will continue putting extra efforts to meet the challenges being thrown at them by the emerging youngsters.

The tournament in which the top 23 ranked cueists of the country are taking part alongwith a couple of junior nominees.

As far as the format of the event is concerned, the 25 participants have been divided in four groups for the preliminary rounds at the end of which the two cueists from each group will be advancing o the knockout phase, starting with quarterfinals. The preliminary round matches will be best of seven frame encounters while the quarter-finals and semifinals will be best of nine frame contests. The final, to be staged on October 17, will be best of 13-frame fixture.According to the draws, top seeded M Asif (Punjab) has been placed in the Group A alongwith eighth seed M Ahsan Javaid (Punjab), M Sajjad (Punjab), Ali Haider (Punjab), Imran Shahzad (Punjab) and Shaikh M Mudassir (Punjab).

Second seed Zulfiqar Abdul Qadir (Sindh), seventh seed M Ijaz (Punjab) and defending champion Babar Masih (Punjab) have been drawn in the Group B in the company of Haris Tahir (Punjab), Abu Saim (Punjab) and Sultan Muhammad (Sindh).

The Group C comprises of third seed Asjad Iqbal (Punjab) and sixth seed M Naseem Akhtar (Punjab) besides M Majid Ali (Punjab), M Shahbaz (Punjab), Abdul Sattar (Sindh) and Agha Bilawal (Sindh). Fourth seed M Bilal (Punjab) and fifth seed Mubashir Raza (Punjab) feature in the Group D with the likes of Sohail Shahzad (Sindh), Ahsan Ramzan (Punjab), Rashid Aziz (Punjab), Shahid Aftab (Punjab) and M Hamza Ilyas (Punjab).