Asjad to face Shahid in snooker final today

KARACHI: Asjad Iqbal and Shahid Aftab qualified for the final of the 9th NBP Ranking Snooker Championship 2017, by edging out their respective unseeded opponents in grueling semi-finals here at the NBP Sports Complex in Clifton on Monday.

The title clash will be taking place between second seed Asjad and fifth seed Shahid on Tuesday (today). The best-of-15-frame contest will commence at 10am. Both the semi-finals went to the full distance of 11 frames. Asjad outwitted unseeded Mohammad Ijaz 6-5 in the all-Punjab encounter with the frame scores of 83-5, 61-13, 41-69, 9-77, 71-51, 70-2, 52-89, 33-92, 62-43, 32-59, 63-15.

Shahid of Punjab outsmarted Abdul Sattar of Sindh 6-5 with the scores of 56-66, 26-67, 86-40, 67-53, 14-70, 8-71, 20-63, 94-28, 78-44, 64-23, and 61-30.Although there had been a plethora of upsets in the preliminary rounds as well as the earlier stages of knockout rounds, there was no unexpected result in either of the semi-finals.

Asjad got off a cracking start as he fired a break of 52 in the opening frame and went 2-0 up right away. But Ijaz got his name on the board by winning the third frame and a break of 53 enabled him to draw level as he won the fourth frame.

The pendulum swung the seeded cueist’s way as he pocketed the next couple of frames to regain his two-frame lead. Another fight-back from Ijaz saw him take the next two frames to make it four-all.

Asjad ran away with the fiercely fought ninth frame but his unseeded rival snatched the next one to take the semi-final into the 11th frame. Vastly experienced Asjad comfortably grabbed the decider to reach the final.

In the other semi-final, unseeded Abdul Sattar snatched the first couple of frames from second seed Shahid, who announced his comeback with a break of 63 in the third frame and sustained the momentum to take the fourth frame as well.Abdul Sattar got on top of the game by winning the next three frames to make it 5-2. He was just one frame away from reaching the final.

But Shahid, a former national champion, brought all his expertise and reserve energy into play by chalking up big breaks of 60 and 70 under pressure which allowed him to claw his way back into the contest. He did not look back after those powerful breaks. He won the next couple of frames as well to force his way into the final of yet another national ranking event.