KARACHI: While his compatriots continued to dominate, Pakistan’s seeded cueist Mohammad Asif crashed to an unexpected defeat at the hands of an unseeded opponent on the third day of league matches in the IBSF World Snooker Championships 2017 in Doha. According to the information made available by the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) on Monday, 2012 world champion Asif was outsmarted by Ko Htet of Myanmar in the Men’s Championship in which Asjad Iqbal, Mubashir Raza and Naseem Akhtar outwitted their rivals. In the Masters Championship, Imran Shahzad, Mohammad Yousuf and Khurram Agha extended their unbeaten run, consolidating their positions. Ko Htet shocked Asif, top seed in the Group E, 4-1 with the frame scores of 91-20, 71-47, 74-32, 41-80, 80-45. In his earlier couple of games, Asif had whacked Emad Seif of Yemen and edged out India’s Pandurangaiah 4-3. His remaining league matches will be against Mateusz Baranowski (Poland) and Ahmed Aly Elsayed (US). Asjad, having blasted Waleed Majid of Qatar in straight frames in his opening match of the Group M, overpowered Keishin Kamihashi of (Japan) 4-2 with the scores of 77-0, 9-85, 8-97, 77-22, 86-17, 77-9. He will now be taking on Steve Mifsud (Australia), Grzegorz Biemadski (Poland) and Yilmaz Yildrim (Turkey) in remaining matches. Debutant Mubashir, who had a dream start to his international career when he overcame Andreas Ploner of Austria in straight frames in the opening match of the Group L, continued his winning spree by defeating Pawel Rogoza of Poland 4-3 with the scores of 45-35, 71-36, 0-85, 20-78, 69-32, 38-73, 83-29. His other opponents in the preliminary rounds will be Ahmed Saif (Qatar) and Rafii Amrou (Morocco). Teenaged Naseem, Pakistan’s other debutant, also got off to a sensational start by whipping Osama Anga of Libya in straight frames in the Group Q. Ivan Kakovsky of Russia, however, defeated him 4-1 with the scores of 5-85, 57-39, 61-33, 69-23, 72-36. He will be pitted against Brendan O’Donoghue (Ireland), Yuttapop Pakpoj (Thailand), and Zayed Alkhayarin (Qatar) in his remaining outings. In the Masters event, former world champion Yousuf, who had blanked Januario Souza of Brazil in straight frames in his opening game, edged out Frank Schroder of Germany 3-2 with the scores of 15-68, 13-62, 58-20, 71-31, 76-5. Khurram, having overpowered Alexey Borminskiy of Russia 3-1 earlier, smashed Juha Lehto of Finland in straight frames with the scores of 65-23, 76-27, 74-28.Imran, who whipped Wang Chooi Tan of Belgium in straight frames with the scores of 75-17, 62-22, 59-10 in his opening game, meted out similar treatment to Richard Emery of England with the scores of 89-28, 70-14, 60-22.
