KARACHI: It will be a battle of continents when Craig Beevers of England meets Chris Lipe of USA in the final of the Scrabble Champions Tournament in London, UK, to decide the World Champion’s title.

According to information received here, all three Australians and an Englishman were knocked out in the quarter- finals played on Saturday.

Both the semi-finals turned out to be high-scoring and extremely exciting and no clear winner emerged until the fifth round decider. Chris Lipe eliminated former world champion Adam Logan 3-2 while Craig Beevers edged Dave Weigand by the same score.

The best-of-five finals will be played later on the final day.

While the top eight players were engaged in the quarter and semi-finals all other players that played in the main draws took part in the “Weekend Open” tournament played simultaneously.

World’s No. 1 Nigel Richa­rds was leading at the end of day one with seven wins out of eight matches. Austin Shin of England and Vannitha Balasingam of Malaysia were second and third, respectively.

Pakistan’s Waseem Khatri had an ordinary day finishing on 33rd position with four wins and four losses.

Meanwhile, the inaugural MindSports International Youth Scrabble Champio­nship also got underway at London. The two-day event features players under 18 years of age.

The former world youth champion Moiz Ullah Baig of Pakistan was in scintillating form winning all his matches on the opening day of the event to get to the top of the table. Poh Ying Ming of Singapore was second with seven wins while the reigning youth world champion Jack Durand of England is currently third with six wins. Moiz has a strong chance to win the second world title of his young career.

Published in Dawn, November 24th, 2014