Karachi:
The 49th NBP National Snooker Championship began on January 21 at the Snooker Arena of the National Bank Sports Complex, and National Snooker Champion Asad Iqbal will defend his title.
The event began with Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Federation President Alamgir Sheikh giving a press conference.
Also present on the occasion were National Bank Senior Vice President and Sports Wing Head Sher Mohammad, PBSA President Javed Karim, Abdul Qadir Memon, Irfan Motin, Mohammad Farhan, PBSA Secretary Zulfiqar Ali Ramzi, Tournament Director Naveed Kapadia, and others.
Sharing his view, Mr. Alamgir Sheikh said that like every year, this year too, National Bank sponsored the National Championship. We are happy that National Bank has been sponsoring our national championship for 16 years.
The prize money for the tournament was set at 525 thousand rupees. The winner of the national championship will get Rs 200,000 and the runner-up will get Rs 100,000.
The semi-finalist will get Rs 50,000, the quarter-finalist will get Rs 25,000 and the player who made his big break in the tournament will get Rs 25,000.
48 players from all over the country participate in this national tournament, divided into eight groups.
The top two players from each group will advance to the quarter-finals. Last year’s national championship winner Asad Iqbal will defend his title. Five junior champion players were granted direct entry into the tournament.
“We will demand Rs 30 million for three-time World Snooker Championship winner Mohammad Asif and Rs 10 million for Ahsan Ramzan from the government under the sports cash prize policy,” he said.
We hope that our application will receive this financial award.
Apart from this, we also have to get all the international medals from 2019-20 so that we can organize second and third ranking tournaments with the money we get.
On this occasion, Sher Muhammad, Head of Sports Wing at National Bank of Pakistan said, “The partnership between National Bank and Pakistan Snooker Federation will continue to encourage our talents like the past. We are also working on promoting other sports.”
Later, he handed over the check for the national tournament sponsorship amount to PBSA officials.