Syed Khalid Mahmood KARACHI: As many as five Pakistani of the seven participating cueists forced their way into the next round while the fate of the remaining two hinged on the results of the last league matches of 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 Wednesday, the experienced duo of Mohammad Asif and Asjad Iqbal along with debutant Mubashir Raza qualified for the round of 64 of the Men’s Championship while Mohammad Naseem Akhtar, the other debutant, was struggling to get there. Mohammad Yousuf and Khurram Hussain Agha advanced to the round of 30 but Imran Shahzad remained uncertain of his qualification into the knockout phase of the Masters Championship. Asjad Iqbal 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. Mohammad Asif, the 2012 world champion, confirmed his spot in the knockout rounds with three victories in four games. Having defeated Emad Seif of Yemen, Pandurangaiah of India and Aly Elsayed of USA his only loss came against Ko Htet of Myanmar. His last league game will be against Mateusz Baranowski of Poland. Mubashir Raza 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 Akhtar was struggle to stay afloat in the championship 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 Yuttapop Pakpoj of Thailand and Ivan Kakovsky of Russia in the earlier games and his solitary win came over Osama Anga of Libya. He will be up against Zayed Alkhayarin of Qatar in the last league outing. Two of Pakistan’s senior cueists continued, Mohammad Yousuf and Khurram Agha have already advanced to the knockout rounds of the Masters event. Yousuf, a former champion, has got there with an unbeaten record, having beaten all his four rivals, Anthony Bonnar of Ireland, Chris Todd of Australia, Januario Souza of Brazil and Frank Schroder of Germany. Khurram Agha 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 Shahzad, 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, jeopardized his chances by succumbing to second successive defeat. Noel Rodrigues Moreira of Brazil overpowered him 3-1 with the scores of 32-80, 85-1, 64-13, 72-0 after 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.
