He defeated England’s Ashmore 7-1 to win the title. Khatri also bagged World Scrabble Championship bronze earlier
Waseem Khatri after winning the Late Bird Challenge tournament. PHOTO COURTESY: Pakistan Scrabble Association
Pakistan’s Waseem Khatri crowned Late Bird Challenge tournament champion in Ghana.
He continued his great form at the event played on the closing day of the World Scrabble Championship on Monday.
Waseem, who narrowly missed the final of the World Championship, showed no mercy in the final event of the championship taking the title with a 7-1 record beating England’s John Ashmore in the final game by a huge margin.
Nigeria’s Chinidu Thorpe finished second, while Ashmore took the third position.
The Guest of Honor for this ceremony was Pakistan Scrabble Association’s Tariq Pervez and he distributed the prizes to the winners.
The Pakistan team will return to Karachi on 19th November after a highly successful tour.
Earlier, Khatri also clinched the bronze medal at the World Scrabble Championship played in Accra, Ghana.
Pakistan has won the youth championship multiple times but this is the best ever finish by a Pakistani player in the adult’s world championship.
Waseem won 22 of the 32 games and was extremely unlucky to miss the final even though he had the same number of wins as the second finalist Nigel Richards. However, he missed out due to a lower spread.
This performance will propel Waseem to his highest ever world ranking.
The Pakistan team included Waseem, Hassan Hadi, Aehzam Siddiqui, M. Inayatullah, and Tariq Pervez. They finished fourth in the championship.
This is best result for Pakistan at this level despite a depleted squad due to the absence of several top players.
More than 200 players from 28 countries across five continents took part in the championship.
The best of seven final was played between two former world champions Adam Logan of Canada and Nigel Richards of New Zealand.
Logan claimed the world title with a 4-2 win.
