This past Sunday night the 2009 National Snooker Trial got underway at the Dubai Snooker Club. Several players already racked up wins and earned points for the tournament. Among those winners were Abdullah Attar, Eisa Al Saeed and Salim Ali Salim.

Round-robin is the tournament format and some of the players were able to get easy wins while others were not so lucky. Salim was up against Yahya Al Suwaidi in Group A and had a hard time earning his win. Attar and Al Saeed were in Group B and were able to pull out their wins pretty easily.

It looked as though the newcomer, Al Suwaidi, was going to be able to beat Salim as he won the first two frames 56-15 and 52-51. But Salim upped his game and took two frames and then won the third and fourth 79-50 and 60-20. Salim finally was able to earn his seventh frame and take the win from Suwaidi.

In the end three players from each of the groups will compete along with Mohammad Al Joker and Mohammad Shehab in a ranking tournament to see who will represent the UAE in international competitions.


- 2009-08-25