History is about to repeat itself as the final of the 2011 United States National Snooker Championship will be between Ahmed Aly Elsayed and Ajeya Prabhakar, as it was two years ago when the Championship was last staged at the Prince Snooker Club in Brooklyn, New York.

Both the defending champion Aly and Prabhakar also came through their semifinal matches by the same scoreline as two years ago, albeit against different opponents.

Aly came up against Yan Y. Zhen playing in his first ever Championship semifinal, and he got the ball rolling early as he quickly took the first frame for a 1-0 lead over his fellow Brooklyn player.

Zhen hit back however to comfortably take the second frame, but Aly then edged ahead by the most narrowest of margins as he banked frame three by pocketing the final black to pinch it by one point.

That came as a huge blow to Zhen's hopes as he found it difficult to get back into the tie from that point onwards, as a break of 38 assisted Aly to take a commanding 3-1 advantage and a run of 36 in the fifth frame comprehensively sealed the match for a 4-1 victory.

The four semifinalists (pictured from left to right) Henry Wong, defending champion Ahmed Aly Elsayed, Ajeya Prabhakar and Yan Y. Zhen Photo © SnookerUSA.com

In an amazing turn of events, Prabhakar's semifinal against New Jersey's Henry Wong, who was also competing in his first semifinal, was identical to the pattern of frame winning play as it was two years ago.

The Californian again went 3-0 behind and although he had recovered from this deficit before, he would have felt deeply disappointed given the opportunities he had and losing the third frame on the final black ball.

Prabhakar's progress in the event had been relatively smooth up until this point, however he was now facing a crisis but all credit to the former champion as he seemed to up his game while his back was against the wall, and he comfortably secured frames four and five to trail at 3-2.

The pressure was now really on Wong but he had his chances in the sixth frame which went down to the final colored balls, but it was Prabhakar who was coping with the situation better and he secured the frame and also raced away with the next to record yet another remarkable 4-3 success.

Due to the late finish of this semifinal, the final has been put back to now commence at 4:15pm local time (1:15pm PT/USA).

Semifinals (Best-of-7-frames)
Match ID	Player		Player
SF1	Ahmed Aly Elsayed (New York)	4 - 1	Yan Y. Zhen (New York)
SF2	Ajeya Prabhakar (California)	4 - 3	Henry Wong (New Jersey)
Final (Best-of-9-frames)
Match ID	Player		Player
F	Ahmed Aly Elsayed (New York)	vs.	Ajeya Prabhakar (California)