Asif, Asjad, Mubashir move into next round in Doha

KARACHI: Five Pakistani cueists have forced their way into the next round of IBSF World Snooker Championships 2017 in Doha. The fate of the remaining two cueists hinges on the results of their last league matches.
According to the information made available by the Pakistan Billiards & Snooker Association (PBSA) on Wednesday, the experienced duo of Mohammad Asif and Asjad Iqbal as well as debutant Mubashir Raza qualified for the round of 64 of the Men’s Championship.
The other debutant Naseem Akhtar was struggling to get there. In the Masters Championship, Mohammad Yousuf and Khurram Hussain Agha advanced to the round of 30 but Imran Shahzad remained uncertain of his qualification into the knockout phase.
Asjad continued his unbeaten run in the Group M as he blasted Yilmaz Yildrim of Turkey in straight frames with the scores of 80-7, 71-13, 75-11, 114-9. In his previous games, he had prevailed over Grzegorz Biemadski of Poland, Waleed Majid of Qatar and Keishin Kamihashi of Japan. He was due to take on Steve Mifsud of Australia in his fifth and final league fixture.
Asif, the 2012 world champion, confirmed his spot in the knockout rounds with three victories in four games. He defeated Emad Seif of Yemen, Pandurangaiah of India and Aly Elsayed of the US. His only loss came against Ko Htet of Myanmar. His last league game will be against Mateusz Baranowski of Poland.
Mubashir reached the knockout rounds of the World Championship in his maiden outing by whipping Rafii Amrou of Morocco in straight frames with the scores of 59-11, 87-5, 58-46, 65-50.Having been placed in the Group L, he had earlier defeated Andreas Ploner of Austria and Pawel Rogoza of Poland before suffering a defeat at the hands of Ahmed Saif of Qatar.
Naseem was struggling to stay afloat as Brendan O’Donoghue of Ireland downed him 4-1 with the frame scores of 62-61, 103-0, 47-60, 80-13, 66-9.
He had also been defeated by Yuttapop Pakpoj of Thailand and Ivan Kakovsky of Russia in the earlier games. He won against Osama Anga of Libya. He will be up against Zayed Alkhayarin of Qatar in the last league outing.
Yousuf and Khurram have already advanced to the knockout rounds of the Masters event.Yousuf, a former champion, has got there with an unbeaten record, having defeated all his four rivals, Anthony Bonnar of Ireland, Chris Todd of Australia, Januario Souza of Brazil and Frank Schroder of Germany.
Khurram also booked his berth for the round of 30 by winning all his three league matches, against Alexey Borminskiy of Russia, Juha Lehto of Finland and Sinan Cetinkaya of Turkey.
Imran, who had whipped the duo of Wang Chooi Tan of Belgium and Richard Emery of England in straight frames in his first couple of games, jeopardised his chances by succumbing to a second successive defeat.
Noel Rodrigues Moreira of Brazil overpowered him 3-1 with the scores of 32-80, 85-1, 64-13, 72-0. He had lost 2-3 to Ihab Al-Salih of Iraq the other day. His qualification in the round of 30 depended on the results of the other league matches in the group.