LAHORE: Mudassir Sheikh overpowered Ahsan Ramzan 6-3 to win the 13th Seagold National U-21 Snooker Championship final here at the National Training and Coaching Centre on Tuesday.

Trailing 3-2, Mudassir came back to complete a 74-40, 51-81, 39-59(59), 77-0, 8-88(54), 73-35, 70-13(68), 60-27, 65-14 victory to win the title clash lasting two hours.Prizes were awarded to the players by Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Federation (PBSF) chairman Alamgir A. Sheikh.

Mudassir played the biggest break of the final in the sixth frame, which he comfortably won. Ahsan, Pakistan’s top-ranked U-17 player, recorded two big frames, first of 59 in the third frame which gave him a 2-1 lead. In the fifth frame he also hit a break of 54, which helped him move ahead of Mudassir 3-2.

However, Mudassir then made a brilliant comeback winning the remaining four frames to claim the coveted title.

The championship was played at the newly built snooker academy hall at the coaching centre under a private-public sector programme. While a piece of land for the academy was provided by National Coaching Centre’s director Nasrullah Rana, its construction cost was borne by M.B. Ghouri, senior vice-president of the Punjab Snooker Association.

Mudassir was awarded Rs50,000 for his tournament win while Ahsan collected Rs25,000 to go with the Rs50,000 he received for winning the under-17 final earlier.

Ahsan also pocketed Rs5,000 for the highest tournament break of 116 with Hamza Ilyas’ break of 119 in the under-17 tournament seeing him fetch a similar amount.

Published in Dawn, August 11th, 2021