Imran meets Shahid in Masters Snooker final today

KARACHI: Punjab prevailed over Sindh as its duo of Imran Shahzad and Shahid Shafiq cruised into the final of the 2nd National Masters (Over-40) Snooker Championship 2018, winning their semi-finals at the Champions Snooker Academy in Lahore on Wednesday.

The final will be played on Thursday (today) at 11am. According to the details made available by the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA), holder Imran and Shahid reached the final by taming Maisam Zaidi and Naveen Kumar Perwani, respectively, in what turned out to be one-sided semi-finals, unlike the quarter-finals held earlier in the morning session.

Imran, from the host city Lahore, proved too good for Maisam, coming from Sindh’s capital Karachi, whacking him 5-1 with the frame scores of 27-70, 90-20, 59-22, 64-37, 76-34, 80-1.

Shahid, also from Punjab, dashed whatever chances Sindh had of claiming the title, by hammering the fancied Naveen 5-2 with the frame scores of 63-36, 66-48, 45-62, 66-13, 70-20, 16-81, 70-24.

In the quarter-finals, Imran, Shahid, Naveen and Maisam had beaten Atif Baig, Fawad Hussain, Khurram Hussain Agha and Muhammad Nadeem, respectively. Three of the quarter-finals went to the full distance of seven frames. Imran faced no problems whatsoever in toppling Atif, also from Punjab, 4-1 with the frame scores of 42-61, 79-15, 61-42, 67-27, 55-37.

Shahid edged out Fawad 4-3 in the other all-Punjab quarter-final with the frame scores of 57-19, 63-28, 31-64, 35-54, 61-22, 6-58, 82-1. Maisam staged a magnificent comeback to turn the tables on Nadeem of Punjab 4-3 with the frame scores of 67-5, 43-58, 20-65, 37-49, 68-9, 63-6, 69-19.

As was expected, the quarter-final between the two most illustrious cueists to have been produced by Sindh, Naveen and Khurram, went to the wire with the former just managing to win 4-3 with the frame scores being 10-81, 65-24, 78-0, 28-72, 26-54, 64-19, 67-42.