Both Pak cueists out of World Under-21 Snooker

KARACHI: Naseem Akhtar and Haris Tahir of Pakistan failed to qualify for the knockout phase of the IBSF World Under-21 Snooker Championship 2017 the league matches of which concluded in Beijing, China, on Friday.

According to the details made available by the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA), Naseem failed to advance to the next stage despite winning his last league match. Haris made an early exit after succumbing to his third defeat in as many games.

The result was particularly disappointing from the point of view of Naseem, who had become the world under-18 champion at the same venue earlier in the week.He, however, showed his class in the fourth and final league outing, blasting Kirill Petrov of Russia 4-1 with the frame scores of 94-9, 64-7, 33-63, 73-18, 52-44.

He didn’t look back after compiling a break of 51 in the opening frame.The promising Pakistani teenager had also emerged triumphant in his match against Shervin Omidvas of Iran, whacking him in straight frames.

But the defeats in the first couple of games, at the hands of Mingqi Geng of China and Tyler Rees of Wales, prevented him from getting enough points to sneak into the round of 32. Haris, who had also performed impressively in the under-18 tourney before being eliminated by his compatriot and the eventual champion, was unable to show the same vigour in the under-21 competition.

Having lost to Zhang Jiankang from China and Jackson Page of Wales in his first couple of games, he was overwhelmed by Julien Leclercq of Belgium who won the match 4-1 with the frame scores of 79-1, 68-57, 58-71, 77-29, 87-4.