Shah upstages Nadir, Zulfiqar beats Bilal

KARACHI: Shah Khan upstaged fourth seed Nadir Miran, while Zulfiqar Abdul Qadir blew the whistle on ninth ranked Mohammad Bilal on the opening day of the 9th NBP Ranking Snooker Championship here at the NBP Sports Complex in Clifton on Tuesday.

Top seeded Mohammad Sajjad, second seed Asjad Iqbal, third seed Khurram Hussain Agha, fifth seed Shahid Aftab, sixth seed Sohail Shahzad, seventh seed Ahsan Javaid, eighth seed Shahram Changezi and defending champion Mohammad Asif got off to a winning start.

Sajjad and Shahram were made to work terribly hard for their victories by Naseem Akhtar and Shaikh Mudassir, respectively. Both the seeded cueists were stretched to the full distance of seven frames by their unseeded opponents.

Abdul Sattar, an unseeded local cueist, earned the distinction of registering the highest break of the opening day as he fired one of 132 in the afternoon session. Majid Ali, an unseeded cueist from Punjab, was the other centurion, chalking up a break of 101 against the vastly experienced Imran Shahzad, also from Punjab.

With the withdrawal of Mohammad Rafiq of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa at the eleventh hour due to an illness, the number of participants in the competition has gone down to 34. Zeeshan Raza of Punjab had earlier pulled out of the event due to “personal reasons”.

The 34 cueists, divided into eight groups, will now be taking part in the preliminary rounds to be spread over four days at the end of which top two cueists from each group will advance to pre-quarter-finals.

Apart from the 30 top ranked cueists, four juniors have been allowed entry into the event which offers prize money of Rs150,000. The winner will be getting a purse of Rs60,000, while the runner-up will be receiving Rs35,000. The losing semi-finalists will be presented Rs15,000 each. The losing quarter-finalists will be compensated with Rs5,000 each and the highest break award will also be worth Rs5,000.

The qualifying round matches will be best-of-seven-frame contests. The pre-quarter-finals and the quarter-finals will be best-of-nine-frame encounters.

The semi-finals will be best-of-11-frame duels.

The final will be a best-of-15-frame affair.

Results: Asjad Iqbal (Pjb) bt Shahid Shafiq (Pjb) 4-0 (57-30, 81-18, 86-12, 79-48); Mubashir Raza (Pjb) bt Aamir Sohail (KP) 4-0 (76-27, 61-45, 63-37, 68-41); Babar Masih (Pjb) bt Asif Toba (Pjb) 4-2 (28-84, 65-21, 65-22, 18-63, 73-37, 72-61); Khurram Agha (Sindh) bt Haris Tahir (Pjb) 4-3 (65-12, 65-33, 59-15, 47-67, 14-75, 40-56, 77-4); Abdul Sattar (Sindh) bt Munawwar Khaliq (Isb) 4-1 (96-17, 83-61, 50-61, 85-36, 132-0); Sohail Shahzad (Sindh) bt Umer Farooq (Pjb) 4-1 (71-34, 83-43, 76-23, 34-75, 73-42); Mohammad Asif (Pjb) bt Abu Saim (Pjb) 4-2 (94-22, 63-51, 93-1, 44-99, 15-61, 93-24); Shah Khan (KP) bt Nadir Miraan (Pjb) 4-1 (56-67, 66-16, 60-9, 73-6, 77-54); Majid Ali (Pjb) bt Imran Shahzad (Pjb) 4-2 (94-12, 17-114, 59-52, 85-0, 35-74, 70-8); Shahid Aftab (Pjb) bt Mohammad Saqib (Pjb) 4-1 (40-93, 49-25, 58-51, 55-25, 73-9); Mohammad Ijaz (Pjb) bt Sultan Mohammad (Sindh) 4-0 (73-50, 73-34, 55-48, 77-30); Mohammad Sajjad (Pjb) bt Naseem Akhtar (Pjb) 4-3 (49-55, 60-26, 59-54, 72-13, 16-71, 63-54, 69-28); Agha Bilawal (Sindh) bt Mohammad Ishtiaq (Sindh) 4-1 (35-69, 50-17, 68-61, 70-41, 63-26); Shahram Changezi (Isb) bt Shaikh Mudassir (Pjb) 4-3 (74-48, 68-23, 67-51, 8-75, 15-79, 24-77, 133-43); Zulfiqar Abdul Qadir (Sindh) bt Mohammad Bilal (Pjb) 4-2 (23-99, 48-62, 89-23, 73-06, 75-39, 72-37).