Punjab quartet in U21 Snooker last-eight stage

KARACHI: All the four cueists from Punjab, Ahsan Ramzan, Shaikh Mudassir, Zubair Tahir and Muhammad Shahzad, qualified for the knockout phase of the 13th Seagold National Junior Under-21 Snooker Championship 2021 whose preliminary round matches concluded at the PSB Complex in Lahore on Saturday.

According to the information provided by Tournament Director Naved Kapadia, the Punjab quartet was joined by the Sindh duo of Asad Khan and Shaharyar Khan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa duo of Muhammad Rafiq and Sajjad Abdullah in the quarter-final line-up.

All the four quarter-finals will start simultaneously at 10am on Sunday (today). Ahsan will lock horns with Sajjad, Zubair will take on Shahrayar, Mudassir will clash with Asad and Shahzad will be pitted against Rafiq.

Having stayed unbeaten and topped their groups at the end of the preliminary rounds, the cueists of the host province avoided a clash among themselves in the quarter-finals and going by their present form, there are bright prospects of all of them forging ahead to the semi-finals as happened in the National Under-17 Championship at the same venue a few days ago.

The semi-finals are scheduled to be played on Monday (tomorrow). The final is due to be staged on Tuesday.

Results: Zubair Tahir (Pjb) bt Asad Khan (Sindh) 3-2 (74-2, 65-21, 46-57, 34-65, 60-11); Sajjad Abdullah (KP) bt Umar Ismail (Sindh) 3-1 (60-48, 64-39, 16-64, 71-26); Muhammad Shahzad (Pjb) bt Usman Waheed (Isb) 3-0 (1-0, 62-23, 79-34); Muhammad Rafiq (KP) bt Zohaib Mustafa (Isb) 3-0 (60-34, 64-14, 59-28); Ahsan Ramzan (Pjb) bt Zunair Khan (Sindh) 3-1 (48-63, 70-42, 60-12, 62-31); Shaikh Mudassir (Pjb) bt Rizwan (Bal) 3-0 (70-7, 48-29, 78-16); Shahrayar Khan (Sindh) bt Kamran Albert Masih (KP) 3-2 (34-68, 76-6, 17-69, 66-54, 46-15); Zubair Tahir (Pjb) bt Jahanzaib Jahangir (Bal) 3-0 (63-37, 57-21, 56-31); Asad Khan (Sindh) bt Munsifudin Alaudin (KP) 3-1 (62-14, 47-68, 68-33, 73-8); Umar Ismail (Sindh) bt Usman Waheed (Isb) 3-0 (52-29, 80-32, 71-47); Muhammad Shahzad (Pjb) bt Sajjad Abdullah (KP) 3-1 (64-17, 33-67, 64-18, 78-57).