Naseem storms into World U18 Snooker semis

KARACHI: Pakistan’s Naseem Akhtar has stormed into the semi-finals of the inaugural edition of the IBSF World Under-18 Snooker Championship 2017 being staged in Beijing, China.

According to the details made available by the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) here on Monday, Naseem forced his way into the last-four stage which ensured a medal for the country in the event contested by 48 cueists from 29 countries.

Naseem outwitted Florian Nuble of Austria 4-1 in the quarter-finals with frame scores of 62-67, 74-7, 86-29, 74-8, 72-21.

The Pakistani cueist narrowly lost the opening frame. He fired breaks of 52, 54 and 68 in the next three frames to go 3-1 up and sealed the fate of the match by snatching the fifth frame.

Earlier in the day, Naseem had prevailed over compatriot Haris Tahir in the pre-quarter-finals, also with the score-line of 4-1 with the frame scores of 72-16, 7-67, 91-31, 69-45, 63-24. He compiled a break of 52 in the third frame.Both Pakistani cueists had stayed undefeated in the preliminary rounds.

Naseem overpowered Dylan Emery of Wales, Waowei Wang of China and Darragh Cusack of Ireland, while Haris proved too good for Jianbo Zaho (China), Mark Lloyd (England) and Kirill Petrov (Russia).