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Thursday March 28, 2024

Asif, Asjad win as Mubashir, Naseem suffer defeats

By Syed Khalid Mahmood
November 22, 2017
KARACHI: Pakistan’s cueists had mixed fortunes on the fourth day of league matches in the IBSF World Snooker Championships 2017 being staged in Doha, Qatar. According to the information made available by the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) on Tuesday, the experienced duo of Mohammad Asif and Asjad Iqbal outwitted their rivals, but debutants Mubashir Raza and Naseem Akhtar succumbed to defeats in the Men’s Championship.
In the Masters Championship, Mohammad Yousuf and Khurram Agha extended their unbeaten run but Imran Shahzad lost his first game.Asif, the 2012 world champion, returned to his winning ways by routing Aly Elsayed of the US in straight frames with the scores of 64-24, 129-10, 73-58, 84-28, which included a century break of 116 in the second frame.
It was the third victory in four matches for Asif, who was shocked by Ko Htet of Myanmar in the previous outing after having defeated Emad Seif of Yemen and Pandurangaiah of India. His last league game will be against Mateusz Baranowski of Poland.
Asjad continued his excellent form in the Group M as he blasted Grzegorz Biemadski of Poland in straight frames with the scores being 64-22, 65-6, 69-22, 85-21. He fired breaks of 55 and 65 during the first couple of frames before signing off with a break of 77 in the fourth frame.
In his earlier games, he had blanked Waleed Majid of Qatar in straight frames and toppled Keishin Kamihashi of Japan 4-2. He will be taking on Steve Mifsud of Australia and Yilmaz Yildrim of Turkey in remaining league matches.
Ahmed Saif of Qatar outwitted Mubashir 4-2 with the frame scores of 67-15, 70-63, 84-5, 50-77, 16-73, 81-0. The debutant had emerged triumphant in his earlier couple of games of the Group L, beating Andreas Ploner of Austria and Pawel Rogoza of Poland. His opponents in the last preliminary round fixture will be Rafii Amrou of Morocco.
Yuttapop Pakpoj of Thailand overwhelmed Naseem 4-1 with the frame scores of 5-76, 71-0, 117-0, 69-10, 61-41. The teenage sensation had begun his campaign by whipping Osama Anga of Libya in straight frames in the Group Q. Ivan Kakovsky of Russia, however, defeated him in the next game. He will be pitted against Brendan O’Donoghue of Ireland and Zayed Alkhayarin of Qatar in his remaining league outings.
In the Masters event, Yousuf, a former world champion, outsmarted Anthony Bonnar of Ireland 3-2 with the frame scores of 23-72, 52-50, 57-8, 27-70, 88-9 before taming Chris Todd of Australia 3-1 with the scores of 66-23, 69-18, 62-69, 62-37.
In his earlier games, he had prevailed over Januario Souza of Brazil and Frank Schroder of Germany.Khurram, having overpowered Alexey Borminskiy of Russia and Juha Lehto of Finland in his previous games, smashed Sinan Cetinkaya of Turkey in straight frames with the scores of 67-14, 90-8, 78-9, chalking up breaks of 50, 70 and 70 in successive frames.
Imran, who had whipped Wang Chooi Tan of Belgium and Richard Emery of England in straight frames, went down fighting against Ihab Al-Salih of Iraq who won the thrilling encounter 3-2 with the scores of 51-76, 8-105, 62-37, 72-39, 59-50.