Haris suffers another defeat, Naseem toils hard in Beijing

KARACHI: The newly crowned world under-18 champion, Mohammad Naseem Akhtar of Pakistan, met with mixed fortunes on the second day of league matches of the IBSF World Under-21 Snooker Championship 2017 being staged in Beijing, China.

According to the details made available by the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) here on Thursday, Naseem suffered a narrow defeat in the first match of the day but he came back strongly to win the other match later in the evening, while Pakistan’s other cueist, Haris Tahir, was beaten in his only match of the day.

Both the Pakistani ceuists will be required to overpower their respective opponents in their last league outings to stay afloat in the competition, being contested by 55 cueists from 29 countries having been divided in 12 groups for the preliminary rounds. The knockout phase will begin with round of 32 later on Friday (today).

In their last league matches, Naseem will be taking on Kirill Petrov of Russia in the morning session, while Haris will be in action against Julien Leclercq of Belgium in the afternoon session.

Pakistan’s sensational teenager Naseem, who had annexed the Under-18 crown at the same venue a couple of days earlier, found it hard to extend his purple patch into the Under-21 event.

After being edged out by Mingqi Geng of China in his maiden outing, he crashed to his second defeat when Tyler Rees of Wales overpowered him 4-3 with the frame scores of 64-19, 39-72, 16-58, 30-74, 67-17, 74-0, 53-42.

He, however, came back in the reckoning with a flamboyant performance in his third game in which he whacked Shervin Omidvas of Iran in straight frames with scores of 58-48, 87-31, 74-56, 80-0, finishing it off with a superb break of 80.

Haris, who had also performed impressively in the preceding Under-18 tourney before being eliminated by his compatriot and the eventual champion, was still searching for his first victory in the under-21 event.

After having lost to Zhang Jiankang from China on the opening day, he was also found wanting in his second game which Jackson Page of Wales won 4-2 with frame scores of 67-37, 99-16, 48-51, 48-59, 56-40, 67-37.