Chandigarh
18 April 2019
DIVYA AZAD
The prestigious 18th Asian Billiards, 20th U-21 Asian Snooker Championship and the 3rd Ladies Asian Snooker Championship will be held from April 27th to May 3rd, 2019 at Community centre, Sector 19, Chandigarh. The Punjab Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA) is organizing the Championship under the aegis of the Asian Confederation of Billiard Sports (ACBS) and Billiards and Snooker Federation of India (BSFI).
Giving details Mr. D S Bains, IAS (retd), President, PBSA said, “Internationally renowned cue sports players from around 15 Asian countries will be participating in this Championship and the people of the region will be able to witness world-class talent in action. This is expected to give a big boost to the sport and help enthuse the budding players of the region to better their skills and performance.
The participating countries include India, China, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Qatar, Syria, Korea, Japan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Iran etc. The current World Billiards Champion Pankaj Advani will spearhead the Indian challenge along with the current Asian Ladies snooker champion Amee Kamani and international medal winners like Dhruv Sitwala, Vidya Pillai and current national Billiards champion Shrikrishna. International Billiards and Snooker Champion Alok Kumar, is from the region and with exposure at this level, we hope that more Champions will emerge when such prestigious Tournaments are organized in the region.”
Talking about the format for the Championship, Mr. Alok Kumar (Arjuna Awardee), General Secretary, PBSA said, “For the Asian Under 21 Snooker & Ladies snooker Championship, the matches will be of best of 7 frames initially with the final being of best of 11 frames. The billiards matches will be played under 100 up format with matches being of best of 7 frames of 100 points each and finals being of best of 11 frames. The Championship will be played on specially imported tables. Mr. Joseph Law of Hongkong will be the Tournament Director and International referees along with Indian referees, will be adjudging the games.”
“All players will be seeded and the seeding will be done by the ACBS Seeding Committee, who will take into consideration previous Asian Championship records for seeding criteria, including other performance records achieved at other multi-sport events and/or at the IBSF world snooker championship and the WSA professional circuits,” Alok Kumar added.
