National Snooker Championship begins today

KARACHI: A record number of 52 cueists from all over the country will be in action during the National Snooker Championship 2016 which gets underway here on Monday (today).

According to the details made available by the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) here on Sunday, Mohammad Faheem of Punjab is the third cueist to be given wild card entry which has raised the number of participants to 52, divided in eight groups for the preliminary rounds.

The veteran Mohammad Yousuf and the young Hunain Aamir, also from Punjab, are the other two cueists to be awarded wild card entries to the National Championship which will be played over a record number of 13 days.

The winner will receive a purse of Rs100,000 and the total prize money will be up to Rs272,000.

The top 12 cueists of the national ranking chart have been granted direct entry into the event, while the qualifiers have come from Sindh, Punjab, Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Islamabad.

Five outstanding junior players have also been given a chance to compete with the best cueists of the country.

Hamza Akbar, who won the National Championship last year, will not be eligible to make an appearance in this edition of the Nationals, as he has graduated to the professional circuit.

The eight seeded cueists are Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Sajjad, Mohammad Bilal, Shahram Changezi, Majid Ali, Babar Masih, Shahid Aftab and Sharjeel Mahmood.

Sultan Mohammad, Rambail Gul, Abdul Sattar and Imran Shahzad are the other top ranked cueists to have earned direct qualification into the event.

The five junior cueists who have been granted entries to the event are Mohammad Muzammil, Mohammad Saqib, Haris Tahir, Abdul Jawaid and Abdul Raheem.

According to the draws, released on Sunday, top seed Mohammad Asif heads the Group A in the company of Abdul Raheem, Bahadur Khan, Farhan Khan, Mohammad Afzal and Agha Bilawal.

Second seed Mohammad Sajjad leads the pack in the Group B, also having Abdul Javaid, Shah Khan, Abdul Rahman, Ian Mark John and Mohammad Ijaz.

Third seed Mohammad Bilal has been drawn in the Group C along with Haris Tahir, Nadir Imran, Sarbuland Khan, Ahmed Shah and Mohammad Iftikhar Khan.

Fourth seed Shahram Changezi stands out in the Group D in the presence of Mohammad Saquib, Nauman Iqbal, Kashif Khan, Abu Saim and Aamir Shahzad.

Fifth seed Majid Ali is placed in the Group E along with Imran Shahzad, Abdul Raziq, Muzammil Khan, Rashid Mahmood, Asif Toba and Mohammad Faheem.

The Group F has sixth seed Babar Masih, Abdul Sattar, Aakash Rafiq, Mohammad Javed, Khurram Hussain Aga, Ubaid Khan and Hunain Aamir.

The Group G comprises seventh seed Shahid Aftab, Rambail Gul, Sohail Shahzad, Raja Rashid, Farhan Noor, Javed Ansari and Mohammad Yousuf.  The Group H features eighth seed Sharjeel Mahmood, Sultan Mohammad, Asjad Iqbal, Zulfiqar Qadir, Saeed Ahmed, Fawad Khan and Mohammad Aqeel.