National Under-21 Snooker Championship from today

KARACHI:  The eighth edition of the National Under-21 Snooker Championship, being contested by a total of 36 cueists from all over the country, will be getting underway here at Hotel Movenpick on Tuesday (today).

According to the draws released by the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA) here on Monday, the participants have been divided in six groups for the preliminary rounds.

Top seeded Abdul Javed (Punjab) has been placed in the Group A alongwith Junaid Akhtar (Khyber Pakhtunkhwa), Mohammad Farooq (Balochistan), Maaz Samad (Islamabad), Suleman Shah (Sindh) and Abdul Rahim (Punjab).

Second seed Ghawish Khan (Sindh) has been drawn in the company of William Leffourge (Islamabad), Adil Zafar (Punjab), Naimatullah (Balochistan), Haris Tahir (Punjab) and Hammad Shaikh (Sindh).

The Group C features third seed Azam Khan (KP) alongwith Mohammad Adil (Balochistan), Fahad Ghaffar (Islamabad), Fahim Nazir (Punjab), Zubair Shamsi (Sindh) and Mohammad Saquib (Punjab).

The Group D comprises fourth seed Mohammad Ibrahim (Balochistan), Hammad Rasool (Islamabad), Hamza Ali (Sindh), Hasan Ali Adnan (KP), Usama Hanif (Punjab) and Mohammad Aftab (Balochistan).

Fifth seed Usama Qureshi (Islamabad) leads the pack in the Group E in the presence of Hashir Siddiq (KP), Mohammad Shahbaz (Punjab), Muzammil Khan (Sindh), Rabish Pervez (Balochistan) and Mohammad Ahmed (Punjab).

Sixth seed Mohammad Afzal (Punjab) is in the Group F with Tanvir Baloch (Sindh), Hiskial Bilal (Balochistan), Abu Bakr Jamil (KP), Farid Firdous (Sindh) and Taimoor Aftab (Balochistan).

At the end of the league matches, which will be best-of-five frames encounters, the top two cueists from each group will be advancing to the knockout stage.

While the top four will qualify directly for the quarter-finals, the remaining eight will be engaged in pre-quarter-finals.

The pre-quarter-finals as well as the quarter-finals will be best-of-seven-frames contests. The semi-finals will be best-of-nine-frames showdowns and the final a best-of-11-frames affair.

The winner of the championship, which will conclude on February 3, will receive a cash award of Rs50,000 and the runner-up Rs25,000.

The losing semi-finalists will be given Rs15,000 each and the losing quarter-finalists Rs5,000 each. The highest break award, with a minimum of 80 points, will fetch Rs5,000.

Both finalists will be entitled to represent Pakistan in the Asian Under-21 Snooker Championship in Sri Lanka and the World Under-21 Snooker Championship in Belgium.