Ahsan Ramzan becomes youngest person to qualify for National Snooker Championship final

• Ahsan defeats experienced cueist Babar Masih during the semi-final match.
  
• Will meet experienced Mohammad Sajjad in the final on Monday morning.
• Ahsan won the match with score of 55-22, 83-9, 11-101(84), 83-8, 0-70, 58-59, 2-60, 84-2, 54-48, 46-57, and 60-2.

KARACHI: Sixteen-year-old Ahsan Ramzan has qualified for the final of the 46th National Snooker Championship, the youngest person to ever do so. This is also Ahsan’s first senior tournament final after winning three junior titles since last year.

Ahsan defeated the experienced cueist Babar Masih during the semi-final match. He will now meet experienced Mohammad Sajjad in the final on Monday morning.

Ranked 14th, Ahsan started the semi-final at the NBP sports complex by winning the first two frames easily. While he lost the third frame, he made a comeback to win the 4th frame to keep the 3-1 lead.

However, Babar – the seasoned cueist who recently played the final of the IBSF 6 Reds World Cup – didn’t let the youngster experience smooth sailing. Babar, while trailing 1-3, fought back and won three consecutive frames to take the lead 4-3.

But Ahsan refused to take any pressure and reclaimed his lead by winning the frame 8th and 9th before Babar levelled it 5-5 by winning the 10th frame after a great display of cue control.

The final frame went in Ahsan’s favour as he qualified for the first-ever senior tournament final. He has previously won U16, U17 and U18 tournaments.

Ahsan won the match with score of 55-22, 83-9, 11-101(84), 83-8, 0-70, 58-59, 2-60, 84-2, 54-48, 46-57, and 60-2.

Earlier, Mohammad Sajjad defeated Haris Tahir in the first semi-final to confirm his berth for the final contest that offers the winner prize money of Rs100,000.

Both Haris and Sajjad remained evenly poised for the first eight frames before Sajjad showed his class and won the 9th and 10th frame back to back and complete a 6-4 win.

Sajjad won this game with scores of 33-95, 66-57, 4-71, 69-0(51), 64-23, 59-71, 58-20, 61-89, 67-15, 62-29.

The final will be played on Monday morning and Pakistan’s first sports channel Geo Super will broadcast the game live at 10:00am.