Five unseeded cueists reach quarter-finals

KARACHI: As many as five unseeded cueists forced their way into the knockout phase of Jubilee Insurance 3rd Ranking Cup Snooker Championship 2017 whose preliminary round matches concluded here at the Karachi Gymkhana on Tuesday.

The quarter-finalists are unseeded Khurram Hussain Agha, Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Ahsan Javaid, Babar Masih and Zulfiqar Abdul Qadir and seeded Asjad Iqbal, Mohammad Bilal and Mubashir Raza.

The five seeded cueists who failed to reach the last-eight stage were Shahid Aftab, Mohammad Ijaz, Abdul Sattar, Mohammad Sajjad and Sohail Shahzad.

All the quarter-finals, due to commence simultaneously at 10 am, will be played on Wednesday (today). Asif (Pjb) will lock horns with Ahsan (Pjb), Asjad (Pjb) will take on Mubashir (Pjb), Bilal (Pjb) will clash with Babar (Pjb) and Zulfiqar (Sindh) will combat Khurram (Sindh).

At the end of the league matches, unseeded Khurram emerged as the Group A champion with top seeded Asjad claiming the runner-up spot ahead of unseeded Shahram Changezi. Second seed and former national champion Shahid was unable to secure a place in the last-eight from the Group B which was topped by seventh seed Bilal with unseeded Ahsan finishing as the runner-up.

Sixth seed Mubashir stood at the top in the Group C with defending champion Babar holding on to the second position ahead of third seed Ijaz. Abdul Sattar and Mohammad Sajjad, the seeded cueists in the Group D, failed to move forward as Asif, a former world champion, topped the table and Zulfiqar, a promising local cueist, ended as the runner-up.

A total of 28 cueists took part in the preliminary rounds. They were divided in four groups, allowing every cueist to play six league matches. Both the semi-finals, to be telecast live on Geo Super, will be played on Thursday (tomorrow) with final, also to be beamed live, will be contested on Friday.

Results: Khurram Hussain Agha (Sindh) bt Agha Bilawal (Sindh) 4-2 (1-0, 74-17, 1-70, 98-20, 59-68, 59-1); Mohammad Ishtiaq (Sindh) bt Haris Tahir (Pjb) 4-2 (23-76, 56-36, 62-22, 1-83, 60-43, 88-0); Babar Masih (Pjb) bt Nadir Miraan (Pjb) 4-0 (56-20, 88-1, 85-25, 89-20); Mohammad Asif (Pjb) bt Majid Ali (Pjb) 4-2 (62-42, 72-13, 26-60, 61-59, 35-67, 61-9); Asjad Iqbal (Pjb) bt Sohail Shahzad (Sindh) 4-0 (76-69, 75-26, 63-26, 87-14); Mohammad Bilal (Pjb) bt Shahid Aftab (Pjb) 4-0 (69-1, 53-37, 64-51, 80-11); Mubashir Raza (Pjb) bt Mohammad Ijaz (Pjb) 4-1 (67-39, 70-23, 31-66, 79-38, 70-57); Abdul Sattar (Sindh) bt Mohammad Sajjad (Pjb) 4-0 (73-48, 63-19, 77-14, 59-19).