KARACHI, Sept 3: International Billiards and Snooker Federation (IBSF) have approved Nov 7-20 as World Cup snooker championship dates to be held at Arabian Sea Country Club, a spokesman for the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA) said on Saturday.

“The dates are more suitable for European countries and the IBSF instantly approved it after (it was) communicated to them,” said PBSA chief Asghar Valika.

He said cueists from around 40 to 50 countries would feature in the fortnight event and for the first time men’s and women’s championships would be played side by side.

“This is going to be a unique honour for Pakistan because we only staged men’s event in 1993,” Valika said.

He said IBSF had fixed end of September as the last date for submitting entries.

PBSA official said as the championship was scheduled after two months, PBSA had decided to conduct its last ranking event, Latif Masters on Sept 14-17 at Karachi Club Billiards Hall.

Prize money of over Rs200,000 will be offered in the four-day competition which will be held under a new format.

Valika said top 16 players drawn in four groups would be featuring in the championship and top two from each pool would progress into in the quarterfinal.

PBSA chief said after the conclusion of Latif Masters, an eight-member Pakistan squad and some standbys would be picked for the world championship.

He said an extensive-cum-training camp for Pakistan team would be organized to prepare the cueists for the mega-event.—APP