Full marks for effort: In-form Rambail falls to Sajjad in final

K-P cueist loses to top-ranked player’s superior skills in ranking event.

KARACHI: Pakistan’s top player Muhammad Sajjad continued his dominant run after clinching the Langnese Ranking Snooker Championship title by defeating Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s Rambail Gul 8-3 in the final played at the NBP Sports Complex, Karachi.  

It was Rambail – a player on a scintillating run throughout the event – who took the early lead in the finale, but Sajjad soon asserted his authority by winning the second frame without conceding a single point.

After being 1-0 down, Sajjad amassed a 5-1 lead after winning five consecutive frames.

However, Rambail broke the one-way trend to win the seventh frame by a margin of just seven points, only to see Sajjad restore his four-frame lead by winning the next frame.

Rambail continued to fight and made it 6-3, but that was all that Pakistan’s number one cueist allowed as Sajjad finished off the match by winning the 10th and 11th frames with a scoreline of 16-60, 98-0(67), 67-11, 119-0(96), 75-23, 69-22, 59-66, 78-10(70), 31-77(55), 88-12 and 53-16.

The winner received a cash prize of Rs60,000 and the runner-up pocketed Rs35,000.

“I’m really happy on winning the title because that is what I wanted to do after finishing as runner-up in the IBSF World Championship,” Sajjad told The Express Tribune.

“It’s not easy to play against the youngsters anymore because they have improved the standard of their play, which is a positive sign for Pakistan snooker, especially with the world championships to be hosted by us next year.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2014.

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