Defending champ Fazil gets closer
F.M Mohamed
Defending champion M.F.M. Fazil of 8BPP got closer to retain the Junior National Snooker title as he along with last year runner-up M. Shamil of Sea Endless won their pre-quarter encounters with ease played at the Otters AC billiards table to qualify to the quarter-finals.
Apart from Shamil five other cueists from the Sea Endless succeeded to qualify to the quarter-finals with the other sole winner being Hussain Ashiq of MICH.
Fazil who is also the reigning national snooker champion had little difficulty in brushing off the challenge of his opponent M.F.F. Ahmed of POP as he proved too good for him while Shamil too got the better of another player from POP F.M. Mohamed with ease.
In the other pre-quarter finals that was played saw M.N.M. Faward (Sea Endless), M. Rimaz (Sea Endless), M. Faris (Sea Endless), M. Imaz (Sea Endless), M.F.M. Thabish (Sea Endless) and Hussain Ashiq (MICH) overcoming S.F.M. Aamir (POP), M.N.M. Abbas (POP), M.N.M. Abbas (POP), M. Ashif (MICH), R. Prabashana (Starlight), Rihan Shakir (RPP and S.R. Shehan (MICH).
Two quarter-finals have been scheduled to be played later in the evening which will be of five frames duration between M.F.M. Fazil (8BPP) and M.N.M. Faward (Sea Endless) and M. Rimaz (Sea Endless) and M. Faris (Sea Endless).
The remaining two quarter-finals, semi-finals and the final are scheduled to be played today from 10.00 a.m. onwards. The final will be played over seven frames at 3.00 p.m. today.
The Junior National Snooker Championship conducted by the Billiards and Snooker Association of Sri Lanka (BSASL) is being played under trying conditions as the BSASL does not have an administration office to run their affairs.
The BSASL administration office was situated at the Sugathadasa Hotel premises and most of the tournaments were played there, but they were told to quit.
The officials of the BSASL approached the Minister of Sports with their grievances but even though they were promised up to now nothing positive have materialised hence the cash strapped BSASL has to hire a venue to conduct their tournaments.
| Results M.F.M. Fazil (8BPP) beat M.F.F. Ahmed (POP) 2-0 (73/26, 70/08). M.N.M. Faward (Sea Endless) beat S.F.M. Aamir (POP) 2-1 (31/56, 60/32, 83/35); M. Rimaz (Sea Endless) beat M.N.M. Abbas (POP) 2-0 73/11, 77/03); M. Faris (Sea Endless) beat M. Ashif (MICH) 2-0 (54/20, 62/31); M. Imaz (Sea Endless) beat R. Prabashana (Starlight) 2-0 (55/08, 57/10); Hussain Ashiq (MICH) beat S.R. Shehan (MICH) 2-1 (47/55, 62/23, 53/02); M.F.M. Thabish (Sea Endless) beat Rihan Shakir (RPP) 2-0 (58/34, 61/20); M. Shamil (Sea Endless) beat F.M. Mohamed (POP) 2-0 (65/21, 57/37). |
- MSA