'Arab Snooker C'ship has strong future'

Secretary General of UAE Billiards and Snooker Association Sultan Al Joaker said he was confident the Arab Snooker Championship will grow stronger and bigger in the future.

“The tournament will grow from here. We have to work harder in developing it further and we are confident of doing it,” he said.

The championship was revived after a lapse of two years in which a total of 11 countries participated at the Dubai Snooker Club.

"When it did not happen for two years we were worried that this would affect the growth of snooker players in Arab countries, so we decided to take the responsibility and conduct the tournament.”

UAE have won this tournament six times and been the runners-up once. But this time our boys were unlucky to miss out on the Singles event after Mohammad Al Shehab and Mohammad Al Joaker succumbed in the quarterfinals. Omar Al Kojah of Syria won the title defeating compatriot Karam Fatima in the final on Tuesday.

“It has been a very tough tournament for us and luck also did not favour when it mattered. Syria in these three years have really improved well and they proved it at the singles event,” Joaker said.

Joaker said UAE will work harder in next year and do well. “I promise that UAE will win this tournament again in the next year. We have a plan in place and we are really working hard in developing our players with the support from the government, Olympic committee and others.”

Joaker also added that efforts are on to strengthen the junior players. “We have some talented junior players including Khalid Kamali and Bard Obaid and we are working on them who can help Joaker and Shehab to build a strong UAE team.”

According to Joaker, there would also be an increase in the number of countries participating to 15 for the next year. “We will have more countries and this year it was too short and we will reach more countries and more number of players.”