Asif wins yet another national ranking snooker title

KARACHI: Top seeded Mohammad Asif overcame the obdurate Majid Ali in the final to win the 7th Langnese Ranking Cup Snooker Championship 2015 here at the Movenpick Hotel Arcade on Thursday.
It was yet another feather in the cap of Asif, a former world champion, who has now won a couple of national ranking tournaments on a trot, having annexed the NBP Cup just a few weeks ago.
It was for the second time running that the finalists were engaged in a marathon duel. The final of the NBP Cup had gone to the full distance of 15 frames. Asif needed no less than seven and a half hours to tame the unseeded Majid 8-4 with the frame scores of 69-75, 78-26, 44-57, 31-90, 74-67, 68-20, 66-32, 30-58, 64-62, 87-0, 69-42, 77-14.
The all-Faisalabad final was played at a snail’s pace with the 22-year-old Majid not allowing his fancied rival to play his natural game.
He succeeded in containing the mercurial Asif, whose break-building abilities are rated second to none in the country.
It went to the credit of the unseeded Majid not to have let his opponent chalk up any worthwhile break.
It was one of the very rare occasions when Asif couldn’t fire a single break of 50 or more during the entire length of a match.
The 33-year-old Asif was in no mood to give it away either. He showed discipline and patience which prevented Majid from establishing supremacy.
The match was wide open at the breather, taken after seven frames, when Asif was leading 4-3.
The tone for the final was set in the very first frame which went to the wire. Majid was able to win it by a whisker.
Asif didn’t take long to draw level but his young rival snatched the next two frames.
The 2012 world champion recovered to win three frames on a trot to make it 4-3 but Majid equalised by winning the eighth frame.
Tough fight ensued in the ninth frame which Asif won by the skin of his teeth.
The match tilted Asif’s way when he made it 6-4 by winning the 10th frame handsomely. Majid tried to stage a comeback but his efforts were foiled by his experienced opponent who led 7-4 after grabbing the 11th frame.
The momentum was with Asif and he made it count by sealing the fate of the match in the 12th frame. Cash awards of Rs150,000 were disbursed in the prize distribution ceremony.
Shoaib Ahmad Siddiqui, Commissioner Karachi, was the chief guest.
Asif was presented a purse of Rs60,000 alongwith the winner’s trophy. The runner-up Majid had to settle with an award of Rs35,000. The losing semi-finalists, Mohammad Bilal and Babar Masih, received Rs15,000 each.
The losing quarter-finalists, Mohammad Sajjad, Shahram Changezi, Shahid Aftab and Sharjeel Mahmood, got Rs5,000 each.
Sajjad, who was dethroned by Bilal in the quarter-finals, had the consolation of registering the highest break of the tournament, which fetched him another Rs5,000.