KARACHI, March 31 He came, he saw and he conquered. Mohammad Asif, a non-entity before the 34th National Snooker Championship, stunned critics and scaled new heights by capturing the elusive crown in the city recently.

Asif, who hails from Faisalabad, dethroned reigning champion Mohammad Sajjad who had enthralled the audience in same fashion against seasoned Saleh Mohammad and at the same venue in the preceding national championship.

The triumph, first in seven attempts, has taken him to the top of ladder in the national ranking announced by Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA) the other day.

Trailing at 13th place before featuring in the country's premier championship, he leapt to the top with 10 points. Hot on his heels with nine points is Mohammad Sajjad. Both the cueists belonged to Punjab.

Five Punjab cueists are among the top 10, followed by three from the NWFP and two from Sindh. The graph of Sindh, which has ruled the baize game for quite sometime, has fallen drastically.

The 27-year-old Asif will don Pakistan blazer for the first time when he travels to China in May to compete in the 25th Asian Snooker Championship at Tangshan city. He will be accompanied by Sajjad who has the experience of featuring in the Asian event at Dubai last year.

Asif, who failed to qualify for knockout stage from his group in the preceding national championship, has made rapid progress in a year. Then, he had beaten Javed Ansari 4-2, Mohammad Afzal 4-0 and Mohammad Aqeel 4-2 besides losing 2-4 to Imtiaz Sarwer and 1-4 to Mohammad Nazeer.

Mentioned below are the top 10 ranking cueists with points.
1-Mohammad Asif (10), 2-Mohammad Sajjad (9), 3-Raees Khan (8), 4-Sharjeel Mehmood (8), 5-Inamur Rehman, (7), 6-Imran Shehzad (7), 7-Rambel Gul (7), 8-Sultan Mohammad (7), 9-Khurram Agha (6), 10-Mohammad Nazir (6).