In March 2022, a 16-year-old from Lahore walked into the IBSF World Snooker Championship in Doha as the 27th seed, on his international debut, and walked out with the trophy. In the final he beat Iran’s top seed Amir Sarkhosh 6-5 in a match lasting more than five hours, a result that made Ahsan Ramzan world snooker champion at 16, the youngest Pakistani ever to win the world amateur title and the second youngest champion in the event’s history.
Ahsan Ramzan world snooker champion: the final in frames
- Event: IBSF World Snooker Championship (the world amateur championship), Doha, Qatar
- Final: 11 March 2022, Ahsan Ramzan beat Amir Sarkhosh (Iran) 6-5
- Frame scores: 63-60, 91-0, 56-34, 1-102, 28-68, 27-66, 86-18, 1-70, 69-0, 63-17, 67-25
- Duration: over five hours and 20 minutes
- Seed: 27th, in his first senior international tournament
- Age: 16 (born 14 August 2005, Lahore)
- Pakistan’s title count: fourth IBSF world title, after Mohammad Yousuf (1994) and Mohammad Asif (2012 and 2019)
The scoreline tells the story of the match. Ramzan led, was pegged back, fell behind as Sarkhosh found his rhythm with a century break of 102, then took the last three frames he needed with the composure of a veteran. Sarkhosh’s century was the final’s highest break; the trophy still went to the teenager.
Photo: LezFraniak, via Wikimedia Commons
The semi-final that announced him
Before the final, Ramzan had already produced the result of the tournament: he beat Mohammad Asif, Pakistan’s defending champion and his own idol, in the semi-final. Asif had won the world title twice and was the senior figure of Pakistani snooker. Photographs of the youngster in tears after that win were shared across Pakistani media, and they captured what the result meant: the student had beaten the master, in the master’s own event.
His group campaign had been almost flawless, winning nine frames and losing only two against Sri Lankan and Russian opponents. He arrived in Doha holding national under-16, under-17 and under-18 titles, having taken up the game as a small child in Lahore. By the time he reached the final, none of that made him the favourite. Sarkhosh was the top seed and the far more experienced player. It did not matter.
Second youngest in history, youngest from Pakistan
Precision matters with youngest-ever claims, so here is the exact picture. The youngest IBSF world amateur champion on record is China’s Yan Bingtao, who won at 14; Zhou Yuelong and Chang Bingyu both won at 15. Ahsan Ramzan world snooker champion at 16 stands next on that list, which makes him the second youngest group of champions the event has produced and, by a distance, the youngest Pakistani. No Pakistani had previously won the title as a teenager: Yousuf and Asif were both established senior players.
The same Doha trip underlined his talent in another format. Playing the IBSF Under-21 championship, Ramzan made a maximum break of 147 in the quarter-final, becoming the youngest cueist to clear the table with a 147 on the world stage, and received a special cash award of 10,000 Qatari riyals from the Asian Confederation of Billiard Sports president in recognition. A 147 is snooker’s perfect frame; professionals play entire careers without making one in competition.
Pakistan’s snooker lineage
Ramzan’s title did not come from nowhere. Pakistan has a deep snooker culture, centred on the clubs of Karachi and Lahore, and a proud record in the amateur game. Mohammad Yousuf won the IBSF world title in 1994, and Mohammad Asif won it twice, in 2012 and 2019, the second of those wins making him the defending champion Ramzan dethroned in the Doha semi-final. What no one in that lineage had done was win it as a schoolboy, in a first attempt, against the top seed. That is why this entry sits in the World Ranking series: it is not only a title, it is an age record that may stand for decades, because world amateur fields rarely contain 16-year-olds at all, let alone champions.
What came after Doha
The title carried an invitation to The World Games 2022 in Birmingham, United States, where snooker appeared as a cue sports discipline and both finalists were invited by the IBSF. Ramzan dedicated the world title to the people of Pakistan, thanking the Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association for backing him through the junior ranks.
His story belongs in the same national record book as Jahangir Khan’s 555-match unbeaten run in squash, another Lahore-linked record that stood far beyond its era, and it is catalogued on our Pakistan World Rankings and Records hub alongside feats such as Pakistan’s Hong Kong Sixes wins. Records like Ramzan’s do something rankings cannot: they prove a Pakistani teenager, given a table and a fair draw, can beat the entire world before he is old enough to vote.
Sources
- Geo News report republished by Pakistan and Gulf Economist: Pakistan’s Ahsan Ramzan wins IBSF World Snooker Championship title (March 2022)
- Geo Super: Pakistan’s 16-year-old Ahsan Ramzan wins IBSF World Snooker Championship
- Stad Al Doha: Pakistan’s Ahsan becomes youngest world snooker champion
- Wikipedia: Ahsan Ramzan (career record and 2022 final details)
- Featured image: Ahsan Ramzan holding the IBSF World Snooker Championship trophy in Doha, March 2022. Photo: IBSF, via Geo News
- In-body image: snooker action at a professional tournament. Photo: LezFraniak, via Wikimedia Commons
Umar is an engineer by profession and a passionate writer by passion. He has a deep interest in sharing good news related to Pakistan and has been working hard to promote the positive image of his homeland. Umar has written numerous articles on various topics related to Pakistan, such as technology, sports, culture, and economy.