KARACHI: Pakistan's Mohammad Asif defeated England's Gary Wilson in the final to win the IBSF World Snooker Championship on Sunday in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Asif, who was unbeaten in the tournament, defeated Wilson 10-8.
In a best of nineteen frames match, Asif was leading through most of the final and was 6-3 up at the break. Pakistan's number one cueist started off well reaching 3-1 but later made mistakes which Wilson took advantage of to win the the fifth and the sixth frames to level the scores at 3-3.
Wilson made a comeback after the break, levelling the scores at 8-8. At this point in the match, Asif demonstrated brilliant cue control to win the seventeenth and eighteenth frame to clinch the title.
President of the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association, Alamgir Sheikh, termed the victory a turning point for snooker in Pakistan.
"Asif worked very hard to win this and it is a very big victory, a turning point for the sport in Pakistan. I hope the government takes notice and supports these boys," Sheikh said while speaking to Dawn.com.
Asif was the third Pakistani to reach the final of the world event and the second one to win it. Before him, Mohammad Yousuf won it in 1994 while, in 2003, Saleh Mohammad was defeated by Pankaj Advani of India.
