The National 9 Ball Championship conducted by the Billiards and Snooker Association Sri Lanka (BSASL) got underway at BSASL headquarters in Reid Avenue yesterday.

The nine frame matches played for the race to the six contested by 48 cueists saw some interesting finishes. The morning session saw some of the fancied players having little difficulty in advancing to the next stage.
The evening session of play saw Que Club’s M.K.M. Sikander record a thrilling five frames to four win over S.M. Ibrahim of Embassy Pool Parlour while specialist in this form of cue game Chamaka Atapattu of Apex Club knocked out M.T.M. Nasoordeen also of EPP convincingly.

Susantha Boteju the reigning national snooker champion one of the favourites to lift the title played his match late in the evening had to pull out all the tricks out of the bag to evade the challenge put in by Sarath de Alwis of YMBA. Susantha cannot afford to stand on his laurels though he is the snooker champ but a crucial mistake could give his opponent the advantage.

The matches are played on a knockout basis with the winner advancing to the next stage. The cueists fight out to the race to six which will be played over 11 frames and then from there they advance to the race to seven which is played over 13 frames. From there on they qualify to the semi finals fought out over 15 frames which is due to be played on December 1 at 2.00 p.m. and then the 19 frame final which is scheduled to be played the same day at 4.00 p.m.

Results: M.N.M. Shiraz (EPP) beat M.J.M. Ifham (MSC) 5/4. M.Z.M. Azzam (BPPP) beat S.M. Shaharwardi (MSC) 5/2. F. Ranil Imam (Apex) beat Anver Azeez (MSC) 5/1. M.R.M. Sikander (Que Club) beat S.M. Ibrahim (EPP) 5/4. Chamaka Atapattu (Apex) beat M.T.M. Nasoordeen (EPP) 5/1. R.T. Theekshana (Apex) beat Robin Aniff 5/4. G. Wickramapala (QPP) beat Faizal Junaid (YMCA) 5/3. M.A.A. Fareed (YMCA) beat A.A.M. Imran (MSC) 5/2. Faizal Haniifa (MSC) beat M. Azhar (BPPP) 5/2. S.M. Zulfikar (YMCA) beat M.N.M. Shiraz (EPP) 5/0. M.Z.M. Azam (BPPP) beat M. Sakir (EPP) 5/2. Vinod Kumar (RSSC) beat Haroon Ahamed (MSC) 5/3. Angelo Coonghe (OAC) beat Isham Umayanga (EPP) 5/4. D. Seneviratne (YMBA) beat Bhagya Dias (Apex) 5/3. M.A.M. Riyas (MSC) beat Nabeel Badurdeen (OAC) 5/4. Thariq Ahamed (YMCA) beat Rizvi Anver (Que Club) 5/0. Susantha Boteju (Apex) beat Sarath de Alwis (YMBA) 5/4.