Bilal’s Asian Snooker dream shattered

KARACHI: Muhammad Bilal’s dream of winning successive titles was shattered in the semifinals of the second stage of the ACBS/IBSF Asian Tour 10-Red Snooker Tournament 2018 being staged in Jinan, China.

Pakistan’s Bilal, however, had the consolation of collect the bronze medal in the four-day event, being held under the auspices of the Asian Confederation of Billiards Sports (ACBS) with the blessings of the International Billiards & Snooker Federation (IBSF) and hosted by the Chinese Billiards & Snooker Association (CBSA).

According to the information made available by the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) here on Tuesday, Bilal has outgunned by India’s Pankaj Advani who won the semifinals 5-1 with the frame scores of 93-0, 5-56, 62-1, 42-34, 37-23, 85-4.

Advani, a former IBSF world champion, controlled the game from the outset and didn’t allow Bilal to stage a recovery after conceding the second frame. He fired a break of 93 in the opening frame and sealed the fate of the match with a break of 84 in the sixth frame. In between he also chalked up breaks of 58 and 40 in the third and fourth frames respectively,

Advani will now be taking on Ju Reti of China in the final, to be held on Wednesday (today) after the local cueist had overwhelmed his compatriot Huang Zhong 5-1 in the other semifinal with the frame scores of 96-0, 68-0, 46-2, 95-0, 0-69, 65-0.

Bilal, having emerged victorious in the inaugural stage of the event, held last month at the QBSF Snooker Academy in Doha, Qatar, earlier in the day downed Ma Chunmao of China 5-2 in the quarter-finals with the scores of 28-55, 94-0, 9-75(75), 53-52, 55-0, 51-6, 61-0.

Ma Chunmao had brought about the demise of Pakistan’s Haris Tahir whipping him 5-1 in the fast paced quarter-finals with the frame scores of 63-11, 39-28, 0-82, 69-0, 62-0, 57-50.

Pakistan’s top ranked cueist, Babar Masih, however, had narrowly failed to reach the knockout stage of the competition, contested by a total of 24 cueists who were divided equally in eight groups for the preliminary rounds.

The 24 participants included the IBSF and regional snooker players together with the Asian champions of 2018. The three Pakistani cueists had qualified in this ACBS/IBSF Asian Tour of 2018 on the basis of their performances in the ACBS events of 2018.