Mohammad Bilal won Asian Tour 10 reds snooker championship ……………Report: Azmat Ali

Mohammad Bilal won Asian Tour 10 reds snooker championship
……………Report: Azmat Ali
Pakistan’s Mohammad Bilal won the inaugural edition of Asian Tour 10 reds snooker championship – the newly introduced format of the game. Mohammad Bilal score in the final was 49-42, 36-48, 47-1, 67-1, 54-23, 55-0, 59-0.

Mohammad Bilal, who was in superb form throughout the tournament, outclassed his opponent from Ireland, Brendan O`Donoghue allowing him to win just one frame.
He kept his dominance in almost every frame and due to his spectacular display Brendan was unable to pot even a single red in last two frames of the game while in frame number 3 and 4, he was allowed to pot just one red ball.
Mohammad Bilal cue-off the final with break of 42 in the opening frame that he won with the score of 49-42 in Doha.
The Irish cueist leveled the game with the clearance of 48 in second frames.
However, Mohammad Bilal didn’t allow him come near in next five frames. He won the third frame with score of 47-1 by playing a break of 46 to regain the lead and break of 42 in forth frame to extend his lead to 3-1.
Mohammad Bilal faced some resistance in fifth frame, yet the Irish player couldn’t stop his winning run and Bilal won the game 6-1.His score in the final was 49-42, 36-48, 47-1, 67-1, 54-23, 55-0, 59-0.
Mohammad Bilal had earlier also played the final of Asian 6 red snooker championship where he had lost to Thailand’s Tanawat Tirapongpaiboon 7-3 and bagged the silver medal. Mohammad Bilal was also part of Pakistan-2 team that won the Bronze medal in Asian Team Snooker Championship. The gold in Asian Team Championship was won by Pakistan-1 team comprising Babar Masih and Mohammad Asif.
The 33-years-old Pakistan’s Mohamed Bilal secured berth into the quarterfinal of 1st ACBS Asian Tour 10 Red in Doha, Qatar as he edged out Iran’s Amir Sarkosh by 5-0 win with the final score line of (52-13, 57-01(57), 67-08(56), 71-17, 39-29).Earlier, Bilal was up against former professional snooker player Darren Morgan in his Group B match but eventually fell short as the Welshman edged him out for a 4-3 win.After five frames, 52-year-old Morgan had been 3-2 up but Bilal forced the decider taking the sixth frame with a 44-point break.However, Morgan came up with a crucial 42-point break of his own to win the frame 54-4 and stay unbeaten in the group, having brushed aside the challenge by India’s Varun Madan 4-1 in the morning session.Pakistan’s Babar Masih, part of the Asian Team Snooker Championship-winning team along with compatriot Mohamed Asif, blanked Myanmar’s Aung Phyo 4-0 on Day 1. It was Phyo’s second defeat of the day, having lost to Andrew Pagett 1-4 earlier in the day.In the pre-quarter final round, Wu Yize of China beat Pakistan’s Babar Masih by 5-3 while Haris Tahir lost to Pankaj Advani from India by 5-2. The Asian Ranking Tour 10 Red Snooker Championship – 2018 was flagging off in Doha, Qatar. After successful launch of World Team Cup of Snooker, now IBSF and ACBS jointly introducing new format of 10 Reds Snooker. The new format is playing in a series of three championships during September-October 2018. Total 24 players are participating for this year’s Ranking Tour as per following criteria:2 players from each host countries + two extra when event is held in host country and 2 players from Europe, 1 Africa and 1 Oceania while 6 from Asia

Pre-Quarter Results:
Player v Player Score line
Wu Yize (China) def Babar Masih (Pak) 5-3 (60-0(40), 37-48(48), 90-0(75), 53-23, 44-49, 63-05, 01-57, 51-20)
Pankaj Advani (India) def Haris Tahir (Pak) 5-2 (55-31, 42-44(44), 48-47, 0-73(51), 67-0(67), 48-01, 49-25)
Muhammad Bilal (Pak) def Amir Sarkosh (Iran) 5-0 (52-13, 57-01(57), 67-08(56), 71-17, 39-29)

Total Prize fund of each championship is USD $40,000. The break-up of Prize money is:
Category Prize money
Winner USD $ 12,000
Runner-Up USD $ 6,000
Semi Finalist USD $ 3,000 (each)
Quarter Finalist USD $ 1500 (each)
Pre-Quarter Finalist USD $ 750 (each)
Last 24 USD $ 500 (each)

The Snooker is a cue sport which originated among British Army officers stationed in India in the latter half of the 19th century. It is played on a rectangular table covered with a green cloth, or baize, with pockets at each of the four corners and in the middle of each long side. Using a cue and 22 colored balls, players must strike the white ball (or “cue ball”) to pot the remaining balls in the correct sequence, accumulating points for each pot. An individual game, or frame, is won by the player who scores the most points. A match is won when a player wins a predetermined number of frames.
Snooker gained its own identity in 1884 when army officer Sir Neville Chamberlain (not the Prime Minister of that name), while stationed in Ooty, devised a set of rules that combined pyramid and life pool. The word “snooker” was a long-used military term used to describe inexperienced or first-year personnel. The game grew in popularity in England, and the Billiards Association and Control Club was formed in 1919. It is now governed by the World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association (WPBSA).
The World Snooker Championship has taken place since 1927, with Joe Davis becoming a key figure in the early growth of the sport with 15 championship wins from 1927 to 1946. The modern era began in 1969 after the BBC commissioned the snooker television show Pot Black and began to air the World Championship in 1978, leading to the sport’s new peak in popularity. Ray Reardon dominated the game in the 1970s, Steve Davis in the 1980s, and Stephen Hendry in the 1990s; Ronnie O’Sullivanhas won the most world titles since 2000.
Top professional players now compete regularly around the world and earn millions of pounds.The sport has become increasingly popular in China. Sir Neville Chamberlain, a British Army officer who devised the game and its rules in the late 19th century.
The origin of snooker dates back to the latter half of the 19th century. In the 1870s, billiards was a popular activity amongst British Army officers stationed in India and several variations of the game were devised during this time. One such variation originated at the officers’ mess of the 11th Devonshire Regiment in 1875, which combined the rules of two pocket billiards games, pyramid and life pool. The former was played with fifteen red balls and one black positioned in a triangle, while the latter involved the potting of designated colored balls. The game developed its own identity in 1884 when its first set of rules was finalized by Sir Neville Chamberlain, an English officer who helped develop and popularize the game at Stone House in Otay on a table built by Burroughs & Watts that was brought over by boat. The word “snooker” was a slang term for first-year cadets and inexperienced military personnel, but Chamberlain would often use it to describe the inept performance of one of his fellow officers at the table. The name instantly stuck with the players. In 1887, snooker was given its first definite reference in England in a copy of Sporting Life which caused a growth in popularity.Chamberlain came out as the game’s inventor in a letter to The Field published on 19 March 1938, 63 years after the fact.
Snooker grew in popularity across the Indian colonies and the United Kingdom, but it remained a game mainly for the gentry, and many gentlemen’s clubs that had a billiards table would not allow non-members inside to play. To accommodate the growing interest, smaller and more open snooker-specific clubs were formed. In 1919, the Billiards Association and the Billiards Control Board merged to form the Billiards Association and Control Club (BA&CC) and a new, standard set of rules for snooker first became official.
The game of snooker grew in the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, and by 1927 the first World Snooker Championship had been organized by Joe Davis who, as a professional English billiards and snooker player, moved the game from a pastime activity into a more professional sphere. Davis won every world championship until 1946 when he retired. The game went into a decline through the 1950s and 1960s with little interest generated outside of those who played. In 1959, Davis introduced a variation of the game known as “snooker plus” (see the Variations section below) to try to improve the game’s popularity by adding two extra colors, but it never caught on.
A major advance occurred in 1969, when David Attenborough commissioned the snooker television series Pot Black to demonstrate the potential of color television with the green table and multi-colored balls being ideal for showing off the advantages of color broadcasting. The series became a ratings success and was for a time the second-most popular show on BBC Two. Interest in the game increased and the 1978 World Snooker Championship was the first to be fully televised The game quickly became a mainstream game in the UK, Ireland and much of the Common wealth and has enjoyed much success since the late 1970s, with most of the ranking tournaments being televised. In 1985 a total of 18.5 million viewers watched the concluding frame of the world championship final between Dennis Taylor and Steve Davis. The loss of tobacco sponsorship during the 2000s led to a decrease in the number of professional tournaments, although some new sponsors were sourced; and the popularity of the game in Asia with emerging talents such as Liang Wenbo and more established players such as Ding Junhui and Marco Fu, boosted the sport in the Far East. By 2007, the BBC dedicated 400 hours to snooker coverage compared to just 14 minutes forty years earlier. In 2010, promoter Barry Hearn gained a controlling interest in World Snooker Ltd., the professional sport’s commercial arm, pledging to revitalize the “moribund” professional game. Under his direction, the number of professional tournaments has increased, certain tournament formats have been changed in an attempt to increase their appeal by 2013 and total prize money had more than doubled from £3 million to more than £7 million