Toba qualifies for IBSF World Championship
Sajjad had automatically qualified for the championship and the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA) had said that the country’s top-two ranked players at the end of the 6th NBP Ranking Snooker Championship will join the squad.
Interestingly, Sajjad went on to win the NBP Ranking Championship, beating Imran Shehzad 8-5 in the final to win his first national ranking tournament after 2010.
Sajjad was in command throughout the match, courtesy an initial 4-0 lead, but Imran fought back after being 7-2 down to make the score 7-5. However, Sajjad went on to win with scores of 73-33, 102-05(102), 72-01(63), 70-40, 02-75, 32-78, 83-00, 65-14, 87-24, 00-86, 00-110, 00-93(93) and 77-17.
Imran was banking on the title, which would have helped him gain top ranking in Pakistan and automatically enabled him to qualify for the mega event.
However, his loss has now placed him alongside Asjad Iqbal, Sajjad and Hamza Akbar in a joint-second spot in the national ranking charts with 16 points, while Toba is heading the table with 17.
“Our commitment was that the two top national players after the NBP ranking event will qualify for the mega event along with Sajjad,” PBSA President Alamgir Sheikh told The Express Tribune.
“However, only Toba has been able to qualify and there is a tie between three players at second position, if we take out Sajjad from the equation. So now our board will decide which cueist among the trio of Imran, Asjad and Hamza will go to for the world championship.”
Sajjad received Rs60,000 for winning the tournament, while Imran picked up Rs35,000. The losing semi-finalists Abdul Sattar and Asjad were given Rs15,000 each.
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