Saadi lifts karate silver, Khalil bags shooting bronze

KARACHI: Pakistan’s seasoned karateka Saadi Abbas won silver, while shooter Mohammad Khalil Akhtar captured bronze medal in the fourth Islamic Games in the Azerbaijan’s capital Baku on Saturday.

Saadi lost 0-4 to world’s leading player Aghayev Rafael of Azerbaijan in the minus 75kg men’s kumite final.

Earlier Saadi, Pakistan’s most successful player with a number of top titles to his credit, started his journey impressively when he defeated Selamaj of Albania 2-1 in the round of 16. The karateka from Karachi then got the better of S Firmansah of Indonesia 2-1 before edging D Otabolaev of Uzbekistan 2-0 in the semi-finals.

Similarly, Pakistan’s other karatekas including Beenish Khan, Gul Naz, Sana Kausar, Kashif and Naseer Ahmed lost their fights in their respective weights.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Khalil Akhtar was the first Pakistani who gifted the country its first medal on Saturday morning when he snared bronze in the men’s 25m centre fire pistol event with an aggregate score of 577-16X.

Ruslan Lunev of Azerbaijan got gold with a score of 581-25X and Yusuf Dikee of Turkey claimed silver with a total of 581-18X.

In the men’s 10m air rifle qualification phase, Pakistan’s Ghufran Adil with a total of 608.7 finished 18th out of 25 shooters, two of them did not start.

Similarly, Siddiq Umar, in the same event finished 23rd with a total of 100.2.

Boxing: It was a good day for Pakistani boxers as Mohibullah and Tanvir Ahmed qualified for the quarter-finals in their respective weight categories.

In the light flyweight preliminaries (pre-quarter-finals) Mohibullah, commonly known as Mohib Bacha, defeated Dayanch Annaseyidov of Turkmenistan 5-0.

Meanwhile, Tanvir prevailed over Traore Daovda of Mali 5-0 in the middle weight (75kg) preliminaries (pre-quarters) to also romp into the quarter-finals.

“Both boxers fought really well today,” Pakistan’s coach Ali Bakhsh told ‘The News’ from Baku.

Pakistan’s four boxers are already in the quarter-finals after having got byes in the first round.

On Friday, Pakistan’s young fighter Suleman Baloch had lost to Obada Alkasbeh of Jordon in the 64 kliogramme preliminaries.

Tennis: Pakistan’ s men tennis team’s golden run continued as they recorded their second successive win when they overwhelmed Jordon 3-0 in their Group B fixture of the team event competitions.

Pakistan’s seasoned campaigner Aqeel Khan defeated Seif Adas 7-5, 6-1. In the second show, Mohammad Abid got the better of Hamza Al-Aswad 6-0, 6-2 to double the lead.

The pair of Aqeel and Abid then whacked the pair of Mousa and Hamzeh 6-4, 6-3 to seal an impressive win. Pakistan will now face Qatar in their last meeting on Sunday (today).

In the 2005 Makkah Islamic Games, Pakistan had claimed three gold and one bronze medal. However the country’s leading player Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi is not playing in the Baku’s spectacle due to his engagement in the preparations for French Open.

Meanwhile, the women tennis side conceded their second game on the trot when they went 0-3 down to Turkey.