Shokat on cue for return to big time (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Shokat on cue for return to big time

3:30pm Tuesday 16th September 2008 in

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ACCRINGTON snooker star Shokat Ali could be on his way back towards the big-time after stumbling across a new cue.

Ali’s form plummeted and he dropped off the main world tour when his previous cue was stolen from his car in 2005.

But after getting to grips with a new model, which he discovered by chance in the snooker club he runs in Preston with fellow pro Stuart Pettman, Ali is back on his game.

“The main thing for me is that I am competing again. Winning is fantastic but more than anything I am playing like I can,” said Ali, who paid just £40 for the new cue.

“We sell them here in the club and I was stacking some in the cabinet when I picked up this one.

“We were pretty quiet that morning so I gave it a try and it was quite nice, so I have stuck with it. I seem to be happy with it.”

The effect was an important victory for Ali in the latest round of the Pontins International Open Series, which acts a qualifying tournament for a place on the main tour.

The 38-year-old beat rising Welsh star Michael White in the final at Prestatyn to sit in second place in the rankings after three of the eight events.

The next instalment is in October and the final top eight finishers will earn their tour cards and give Ali the chance to end the slump which followed the theft of his cue and resume a top-flight career which saw him climb to number 34 in the world and reach the quarter-finals of the Thailand Open.

“Of course it’s my ambition to get back on. I have given myself a chance,” he added. “But I am just happy to be competing again.

“That’s all I was bothered about. If you are competing you don’t know what will happen.

“I was provisionally 45 in the world and had beaten some of the best players in the world when I lost my cue, so to fall off the tour was disheartening.

“It hurt me really badly. It’s very sad when you turn up at a tournament or even a league game and you know it’s not you. I had not been the same player and I was really struggling.

“I have the type of game where I rely a lot on my cue. There are some modern players who can just pick up any cue and pot balls with it but I wasn’t like that.”