Asif hangs on to win National Snooker Championship

KARACHI: Living up to his big reputation, top seeded Muhammad Asif came from behind in the final against unseeded Shahid Aftab to win the Jubilee Insurance 45th National Snooker Championship 2020 here at the Karachi Gymkhana on Wednesday.

Asif, by his own admission, felt like going down and out when trailing 2-6 and 3-7 in the best of 15-frame final but, like numerous occasions in the past, he staged a magnificent comeback from the brink of disaster to win the contest 8-7 with the scores of 21-69, 80-73, 67-20, 26-49, 42-77, 25-106, 35-69, 1-76, 116-0, 88-2, 0-107, 78-32, 72-35, 62-48, 70-28.

The 38-year-old Shahid, aiming to regain the national title after almost a decade, got off to a flying start by winning the opening frame. He was set to double his lead until Asif, 37, chalked up a break of 69 to snatch the second frame.

Asif moved ahead with another fine break of 63 in the third frame but Shahid, quite remarkably, won the next five frames to go into a commanding 6-2 lead. Asif narrowed the deficit by securing the ninth frame but Shahid produced an excellent break 85 in the very next frame to go 7-3 up.

All Shahid needed at this stage was just one more frame but Asif didn’t let it happen with a mixture of good fortune and incredible resilience. Slowly but surely Asif got into his elements and there was hardly any doubt about the outcome when the two cueists entered the arena for the decisive 15th frame of a marathon final.

“Oh yes there were times during the final when I thought it might not be my day and Shahid could run away with the title. But I also held a firm belief that my opponent could make an odd mistake here or there to let me provide the opening I needed and, as everybody saw, he did play a few false strokes and I was back in business,” Asif, who is also the reigning champion, remarked while talking to ‘The News’ soon after the completion of an epic final which lasted six hours non-stop.

“Experience of taking the game deep comes handy as this quality is not built overnight, no matter how talented the cueist may be. I have also learnt it after toiling hard for so many years and the ability to absorb pressure indeed has become my forte now,” he observed.

Shahid, the fallen guy, was not disheartened or heartbroken either. “I played to the best of my ability and came very close to regaining the national title after nearly a decade. But Asif played better than me in the end and he capitalized on my mistakes to change the course of the match,” he said rather sportingly although he did look sad at the outcome.

“No, I was not overawed by the reputation of my opponent or anything like it. Simply I had to pay the price of committing the mistakes which I could have avoided. May be I was little eager to go for the kill which resulted in playing shots which could have been avoided,” he reckoned.

Both the finalists, hailing from the industrial city of Faisalabad, were happy to have been engaged in one of the best finals in Pakistan’s snooker history.

The best of 15-frame final, telecast live on Geo Super, was followed by the prize distribution ceremony in which Syed Usman Qaiser, Head of Marketing, Jubilee Life Insurance, and Tauseef Shah, Head of Marketing, Jubilee General Insurance, presented awards to the outstanding performers.

A beaming Asif collected a cheque of Rupees one lac along with the winner’s trophy, while Shahid received a cheque of Rupees fifty thousand with the runner-up trophy.

Alamgir Anwar Shaikh, Co-Chairman, Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA), described Asif as a living legend.

“Besides winning the World Championship a couple of times (2012 & 2019), now Asif has also clinched the national title four times (2009, 2012, 2018 & 2020) and he fully deserves to be regarded as modern snooker legend,” Alamgir said.

Munawwar Hussain Shaikh, President, PBSA, announced that both Asif and Shahid, by virtue of being the finalists of the Nationals 2020, will now be representing the country in the upcoming Asian Snooker Championship.