YANGON, April 12 (Xinhua) -- Li Hang of China became champion after defeating his compatriot Li Yuan in the final of the 9th U-21 Asian Snooker Championship at the Kandawgyi Palace Hotel here Saturday.

    Li Hang, 17, beat Li Yuan, 18, 6-1 (127-8, 84-8, 0-123, 82-28, 66-55, 64-49, 100-0) in the 3-hour-long final and clinched the title of U-21 Asian snooker champion.

    In the third-place playoff, Sorrawit Thiraphongpaiboon of Thailand defeated his teammate Chinnakrit Yaowannasri, who lost to Li Hang in the semifinals, 3-2 (16-94, 69-45, 0-83, 72-0, 51-41) on Friday.

    Li Hang told Xinhua after the final match that he started playing snooker since he was 11 years old. He is very happy for grabbing the title of the 9th U-21 Asian Snooker Championship for the first time and he will compete in other world championships this year, adding that he ranked third in the 2005 World Youth Snooker Championship in Berlin, Germany.

    Li Hang defeated, 3-0 each, Manish Jain (India), Muhammad Imran(Pakistan) and Mohamed Anaz Moahmed Riaz (Sri Lanka) in the group-stage, beating Naing Lin Thu (Myanmar) 4-0 in the pre-quarter and passing through Amir Sarkhosh (Iran) with 4-0 win in the quarter-finals of the 8-day championship.

    He also crushed Chinnakrit Yaowannasri of Thailand 5-0 (60-30, 67-21, 68-16, 56-15, 88-0) in the semifinals of the championship, entering the final together with his teammate Li Yuan who beat Soheil Vahedi (Iran) 4-2 in the quarter-finals and trounced Thailand's Sorrawit Thiraphongpaiboon 5-1 (71-36, 67-40, 86-4, 56-70, 91-26, 45-9) in the semifinals of the 9th U-21 Asian Snooker Championship on Friday.

    Three Chinese snooker players participated in the continental championship from April 5 to 12 along with other 27 snooker players from 11 countries -- India, Iraq, Iran, Malaysia, host Myanmar, Pakistan, Qatar, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand and United Arab Emirates.

    The third Chinese snooker player, Zhang Anda, lost to Sorrawit Thiraphongpaiboon (Thailand) in the quarter-finals on Thursday after beating Muhammad Ahsan Javid (Pakistan) in the pre-quarter on the same day.

    Five snooker players from host Myanmar, three each from China, India, Iran, Pakistan and Thailand, and two each from Iraq, Malaysia, Qatar, South Korea and United Arab Emirates took part in the championship.

    The 7th Asian Billiards and 9th U-21 Asian Snooker Championships kicked off at Kandawgyi Palace Hotel here last Saturday, with the participation of 55 players -- 25 billiards players and 30 snooker players, including defending and four other former world billiards champions, from 14 countries.

    It was the second time Myanmar hosted the championships. Myanmar hosted such event for the first time at Asia Plaza Hotel here in March 2003 participated by Seven Asian countries.