Daily Times

KARACHI: The snooker season gets underway with the simultaneous hosting of the National Under-18 and Under-21 Championships at the Pakistan Sports Board complex, Islamabad from Friday (tomorrow). Both the competitions carry prize money of Rs 130,000 apiece with the winners getting a purse of Rs 50,000 each and runners-up Rs 25,000. The details of the annual calendar were unveiled by the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA) on Wednesday. The calendar envisaged 20 competitions eight domestic and 12 international including the launch of Pakistan Snooker League that could not take place in the preceding year despite its announcement.

PBSA president Munawwar Hussaain Shaikh said the national federation was more focused on juniors who are producing good results. He cited an example of Punjab Cup held recently at Lahore where junior world champion and prodigy Haris Tahir was crowned champion by getting the better of reigning junior world Under-18 champion Mohammad Naseem Akhtar in the final. Answering questions pertaining to selling of 20 imported tables worth over Rs 8 million, he said the tables were sold and replaced by new ones and presently the PBSA had a stock of 10 tables. He further said discussions were underway with the sponsors for the launch of Pakistan Snooker League (PSL) this year.

Elaborating upon the calendar, he said besides the above mentioned junior events, the other domestic competitions include second National Masters (forty plus) Snooker Championship at Lahore from Jan 27, the 43rd National Snooker Championship at Karachi from 10 to 21, three other national ranking tournaments, all at Karachi, the PSL and the Provincial Cups.

In international events, Pakistan cueists will feature in Asian Open Team at Doha from March 4 to 8, 19th Asian Under-21 at Myanmar from April 18 to 25, 14th Asian Snooker Championship at Iran from April 22 to 28, 6th Asian Team and 7th 6-Reds Snooker Championship at Chandigarh from May 5 to 11, IBSF World Under-21 Snooker Championship from July 1 to 12 (venue not decided), IBSF 6-Reds and Team Event in August (venue not decided), 2nd Asian Billiards Sports in South Korea from August 11 to 19, IBSF Asian Tour from September 26 to 29 (venue not decided), IBSF Asian Tour from October 7 to 10 (venue not decided), IBSF World Under-16 Snooker Championship in October (venue not decided), IBSF Asian Tour from October 22 to 25 (Sindh, Punjab, Balochtistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamabad) and the IBSF World Snooker Championship for Men, Women, and Masters in November (venue not decided).

Published in Daily Times, January 4^th 2018.