Babar, Sohail, Asjad win first matches

KARACHI: Babar Masih, Sohail Shahzad and Asjad Iqbal emerged triumphant in their first matches on the opening day of the IBSF 6-Red Snooker Championship 2016 at Sharm-e-Sheikh in Egypt on Wednesday.

According to the details made available by the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) on Thursday, Mohammad Bilal suffered a defeat in his maiden outing.

A total of 145 cueists from 26 countries have entered the tournament. They have been divided in 32 groups for the preliminary rounds at the end of which the three cueists will be advancing to the knockout phase.

Drawn in the Group I, Asjad Iqbal was the only Pakistani cueist to have won both his matches on the opening day.

He began his campaign by overpowering Khalid Fakhouri of Jordan 4-1 with the frame scores of 38-5, 16-44, 39-16, 59-23, 57-12.

He followed it up with a hard-fought 4-3 win over Dilip Kumar of India with the scores of 62-6, 43-13, 61-2, 43-0, 31-37, 6-40, 62-0, which included his impressive breaks of 62, 43 and 63 in the first, fourth and seventh frames, respectively.

Asjad’s opponents in the remaining two league matches will be Mohammad Hammouda of Egypt and Keith Thomas of Wales.

Babar also started off his campaign on a winning note in the Group B as he whipped Mhanaa Alobaidli of Qatar in straight frames with the scores of 39-0, 56-15, 49-0, 45-7 with a break of 56 in the second frame.

His day, however, was spoiled by Simon Dent of England who edged out his supremely confident Pakistani rival 4-3 with the scores of 7-51, 33-20, 0-44, 8-49, 27-18, 61-0, 35-18.

Babar will now be taking on Karim Elabd of Egypt and Dharmindar Lilly of India in the remaining matches.

Sohail was awarded walkover against Mohammad Qureshi of Mozambique in his first game in the Group D.

Darren Morgan of Wales overpowered Bilal 4-2 with the frame scores of 50-9, 0-44, 37-29, 34-5, 7-27, 41-6.