Babar whacks Toba to regain snooker title

KARACHI: Second seed Babar Masih regained the title by toppling unseeded Asif Toba in the all-Punjab final of the Jubilee Insurance Ranking Snooker Championship 2018 here at the Karachi Gymkhana on Monday.

Babar overpowered Toba 8-5 in the best-of-15-frame final with the scores being 44-82, 51-69, 63-48, 114-16, 102-19, 65-20, 9-98, 16-60, 111-8, 26-88, 107-27, 62-35, 52-7.

Babar became the top ranked cueist of the country, displacing Muhammad Asif, whom he had edged out in their semi-final the other day.

Asif, relegated to the second position in the national ranking chart will, however, represent Pakistan, Babar, in the IBSF World Championship to be staged at Yangon, Myanmar, from November 18 to 26.

Babar became richer by Rs100,000 as he collected the winner’s trophy. Runner-up Toba received Rs40,000 with the runner-up trophy. The losing semi-finalists, Muhammad Asif and Sharjeel Mahmood, got Rs20,000 each.

Majid Ali was awarded Rs5,000 for registering the highest break (118) of the championship.Unlike the semi-finals and two of the quarter-finals, the final didn’t go to the wire as the supremely confident Babar extended his awesome form to regain the title he first won in 2016.

He remained undefeated in the one-week event, contested by 24 top cueists of the country.He notched up a couple of century breaks and missed one narrowly, which demonstrated his prowess.

It was Toba, however, who drew the first blood in the final. He managed to double his lead with an impressive break of 63 in the second frame.Unperturbed at being 0-2 down, Babar entered the third frame in his typically calm manner and won it after a close fight. He bamboozled his opponent with a sizzling break of 100 in the fourth frame which restored parity in the game.

Another cracking break of 91 in the very next frame saw him go 3-2 up. Toba was unable to come to terms with the rampaging Babar in the sixth frame, but delivered the goods in the next couple of frame to reduce the deficit.

Once again Babar retaliated with a big break of 111 which put him in a two-frame lead. Toba refused to give up, chalking up a fluent break of 73 to keep the contest alive.But Babar was not frightened and didn’t let his rival come close again. Starting with a break of 86 in the 11th frame, he also pocketed the next two frames to seal the fate of the match.

Speaking at the prize distribution ceremony, Tahir Ahmed, Managing Director, Jubilee General Insurance, expressed delight at the rising standard of snooker in the country. He said he expected greater efforts in future to attract teenagers as well as women to cue sports.

Also present on the occasion were Munawwar Hussain and Alamgir Anwar Shaikh, top officials of the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA), and Karachi Gymkhana president Akbar Iqbal Puri.