KARACHI, April 10: Ahmed Bawany playing perhaps at his best, reached the final of the Fourth Red & White Nine Ball Pool tournament after disposing off Punjab’s Farhan Noor 9-5, at the Snooker Zone, Shehnaz Arcade, main Shaheed-e-Millat Road on Wednesday.

After having two narrow escapes, first in the pre-quarter-finals where he beat his best friend Mukhtar Khan 7-6 in a thrilling encounter and then accounted for Minhas Malik by the same margin in the quarter-finals, Bawany held off the stiff challenge of Farhan Noor to emerge a happy finalist. Bawany will now take on Saleh Mohammad, who earlier in the last 16, got the better Atiq Latif Bux 7-6 in an absolute scorcher, then sent Sindh’s Shakeel Bhatti packing 7-4 in the quarter-finals.

Meeting Inam ur Rehman in the semis, Saleh came from behind trailing 2-5 and 6-8 at one stage of the match to emulate counterpart Inam ur Rehman 7-6 in the closing stages in a nail biting finish.

In the final frame, Inam had a great chance to wrap up the match, but undergoing immense pressure, made an unforced error on the No.3 ball and paid the penalty.

Saleh swooping down like a marauding hawk sealed the match in his favour, sinking the last seven balls on the table.

In other matches decided in the last rack in the pre-quarter-finals, Shakeel Bhatti beat Shehzad Nasim 7-6 and Anwar Saeed beat Asif Moti by the same margin.

Farhan Noor beat Raees Khan 7-5, Imran Shehzad beat Salman Sheikh 7-4, Inam ur Rehman beat Najmur Rehman 7-2 and Minhas Malik shocked Khurram Hussain Agha by the same margin.

Fighting for a place for the semi-finals, Inam ur Rehman beat Anwar Saeed 7-5 and Farhan Noor beat Imran Shehzad 7-4.

The Nine Ball Pool final will be played on Thursday evening at 5.00 p.m. with the cueist reaching 11 racks first emerging the winner.

The billiards final between Khurram Hussain Agha and Imran Shehzad will will be played on the same day commencing at 12.00 noon. The player reaching seven games first, will emerge the winner.

Following were the results in Nine Ball Pool

PRE-QUARTER FINALS