Ahsan, Mudassir, Zubair, Shahzad reach U21 Snooker semis

KARACHI: The Punjab quartet of Ahsan Ramzan, Shaikh Mudassir, Zubair Tahir and Muhammad Shahzad forced their way into the semi-finals of the 13th Seagold National Junior Under-21 Snooker Championship 2021 as they won their quarter-final matches at the PSB Complex in Lahore on Sunday.

According to the information provided by Tournament Director Naved Kapadia, the Sindh duo of Asad Khan and Shaharyar Khan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa duo of Muhammad Rafiq and Sajjad Abdullah were eliminated at the first hurdle of knockout rounds. The participants from Balochistan and Islamabad had failed to advance beyond the preliminary rounds.

In the best-of-seven-frame quarter-finals, Ahsan smashed Sajjad in straight frames with the scores of 77-34, 74-33, 80-9, 66-25 as he constructed breaks of 68 and 70 in the second and third frames, respectively.

Zubair whipped Shahrayar 4-1 with the frame scores of 55-60, 55-8, 56-38, 44-55, 4-42. Shahzad overpowered Rafiq 4-2 with the scores of 113-0, 61-43, 19-49, 55-6, 37-71, 92-16, having registered breaks of 75 and 72 in the first and last frames, respectively.

The quarter-final tie between Mudassir and Asad went to the full distance of seven frames with the former winning the tensely fought duel 4-3 with the scores of 88-9, 38-68, 72-36, 56-63, 6-66, 53-10, 67-63.

Both the all-Punjab semi-finals, to be best-of-nine-frame encounters, will start simultaneously at 10am on Monday (today). Ahsan will be pitted against Zubair and Mudassir will take on Shahzad.