Unseeded Asif, Zulfiqar in snooker final

KARACHI: The unseeded duo of Mohammad Asif and Zulfiqar Abdul Qadir stormed into the final after rocking top seeded Asjad Iqbal and seventh seed Mohammad Bilal, respectively, in the semi-finals of Jubilee Insurance 3rd Ranking Cup Snooker Championship 2017 here at the Karachi Gymkhana on Thursday.

After a very long time, the final of a national ranking event is going to be contested between unseeded cueists as Asif of Punjab will take on Zulfiqar of Sindh in the best-of-15-frame clash, which commences at 9am on Friday (today).

Zulfiqar, who has been playing consistently in the national competitions over the past couple of years after being around for more than a decade, is now just one match away from fulfilling his dream of clinching his maiden title.

With a series of upsets having taken place on every single day of the championship, Zulfiqar, hailing from Karachi, may still be fancying his chances although his opponent in the final is a former world champion.

Both the finalists demonstrated incredible form and fitness to demolish their seeded rivals with hints of conviction. Asif, from Faisalabad, took only one hour and 40 minutes to rout top seeded Asjad, the gifted cueist from Sargodha, in straight frames with the scores of 73-0, 75-1, 66-21, 59-45, 47-4, 96-25.

Although local boy Zulfiqar took a little longer to complete his victory over Bilal, a resident of Mandi Bahauddin, in the second semi-final the outcome was never in doubt with the former winning 6-2 with the frame scores of 56-53, 123-0, 17-67, 85-76, 14-79, 68-8, 66-37, 81-31.It went to the credit of Asif to have forced a cueist of the caliber of Asjad to complete submission as he went on pocketing one frame after another, virtually finding no resistance.

The first couple of frames were taken very quickly while Asjad helped himself to a few points in the third frame before surrendering. Asif fired a break of 53 in the fourth frame to dash Asjad’s hopes of opening his account.

Asif was in complete control in the fifth frame and he extended his dominance in the sixth frame as well, celebrating the massive victory with a superbly compiled break of 96. Bilal, who was extremely fortunate to have edged out defending champion Babar Maish in the quarter-final the other day, didn’t have the same luck against Zulfiqar.

Zulfiqar capitalised on the weaknesses of his rival who appeared out of sorts for the second day running. It wasn’t a one-sided encounter but there was hardly any element of surprise in watching Bilal bite the dust.

Displaying confidence and maturity, Zulfiqar chalked up a break of 62 in the second frame after narrowly winning the first. Bilal snatched the third frame with the help of a break of 53 but Zulfiqar won the next.

Another break of 52 helped Bilal take the fifth frame but he ran out of steam afterwards with the local cueist snatching the next three frames on a trot and sealing the fate of the match with another impressive break of 67 in the eighth frame.