Bilal dethrones Babar in Ranking Cup Snooker

KARACHI: Seventh seed Mohammad Bilal dethroned Babar Masih, edging him out after a most fiercely fought best of nine-frame quarter-final of Jubilee Insurance 3rd Ranking Cup Snooker Championship 2017 here at the Karachi Gymkhana on Wednesday.

In the other quarter-finals, top seed Asjad Iqbal outgunned sixth seed Mubashir Raza 5-1, Mohammad Asif overcame Ahsan Javaid 5-2 and Zulfiqar Abdul Qadir outclassed veteran Khurram Hussain Agha by an identical score-line.

Both the best-of-11-frame semi-finals, to be telecast live by Geo Super, will be played on Thursday (today). The first semi-final, to be an all-Punjab battle between Asjad and Asif, commences at 10am. It will be followed by the second semi-final between Bilal of Punjab and Zulfiqar of Sindh.

The quarter-finals began simultaneously and the one between Bilal and Babar lasted the longest. It was the most absorbing encounter of the day as it went to the full distance of nine frames.

Both the cueists played superbly and neither of them deserved to lose after having put so much effort into the game. Bilal was fortunate to have won the match 5-4 with the frame scores of 57-69, 0-102, 58-17, 14-61, 0-114, 65-44, 61-41, 71-59, 58-56.

Defending champion Babar was in the game all along but was unable to call the shots as he would have desired. His breaks of 50 in the second and 114 in the sixth frame suggested that he was not overawed by the occasion.

Bilal’s only break of over 50 came in the third frame as he was content in playing safe rather than pursuing his natural aggressive style — a strategy that worked. The only quarter-final featuring both the seeded contestants turned out to be a one-sided affair as top seed Asjad faced no problems in eliminating sixth seed Mubashir, who was soundly beaten 5-1 with the frame scores of 83-27, 70-30, 1-78, 56-3, 72-24, 82-29.

Experience prevailed over youth in the quarter-final between Asif, a former world champion, and Ahsan, one of the most promising young cueists of the country. The vastly experienced Asif won the match 5-2 with the frame scores of 17-74, 78-02, 66-07, 60-54, 78-22, 12-80, 71-34.

It was different story to relate, however, in the all-Sindh quarter-final between Khurram and young Zulfiqar.The youngster succeeded in taming the master cueist of the yesteryears thrashing him 5-2 with the frame scores of 105-6, 69-0, 14-60, 83-18, 73-5, 08-61, 98-5.

Zulfiqar was a picture of confidence from the outset as he fired a break of 55 in the opening frame and followed it up with one of 64 in the second frame. Khurram came back strongly to win the next couple of frames but that was all he managed in the match. Zulfiqar signed off with a classy break of 89 in the seventh frame.