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| April 19, 2002 | Friday | Safar 5, 1423 |
Khurram and Farhan eliminated
KARACHI, April 18: The top two seeds Khurram Hussain Agha and Farhan Mirza, bowed out of the Sixth Red & White Style Snooker championship at the Karachi Gymkhana on Thursday.
Top seed Khurram went down to No.4 Naveen Perwani 5-4 and defending and reigning national champion Farhan, met the same fate with an identical margin by NWFP’s Arifullah.
Khurram began his campaign in great style chalking up a fluent break of 67, but Naveen potting to perfection, not only equalised the scores 1-1, but went ahead 2-1, picking up the next two frames.
Bouncing back Khurram drew abreast and riding the tide took over the lead again 3-2. Naveen rather disappointed with the proceedings fought his way back grabbing the next two frames with the lead changing over again this time in favour of Naveen 4-3.
In a hard fought out eighth, Khurram was in front again. But Naveen was soon breathing down his neck and was leading 49/48 with blue, pink and black still to pot.
At this crucial juncture, Naveen going for a difficult blue inoffed with his cue ball and Khurram had only to pot blue with the pink to tie the frame scores 4-4.
In the decider, Naveen grabbed the early lead with 29 points on the trot. Khurram did better replying with 35 points, before gifting away seven crucial points on the black ball.
As the two fought on in pindrop silence the scores were level 50-50 with the six coloured balls on the table. Another unforced error by Khurram with his cue ball, enabled Naveen to take over the lead. Then sinking yellow, green, a difficult brown, a fairly difficult blue and the pink, Naveen was home and dry in a hard fought out encounter which lasted four gruelling hours.
Earlier, Arifullah created quite a stir, edging out Farhan Mirza 5-4, after trailing 1-3 at one stage of the game, when the bespectacled No.2 chalked up breaks of 52 and 34 in the fourth frame.
Arifullah however, was not giving up in a hurry. With sound breaks of 37 and 42, he levelled the frame scores 3-3, only to see Farhan take over the lead once again 4-3.
Former world and Asian champion Mohammad Yousuf, seeded third in this tournament, avoided defeat by a whisker ending the brave fightback of Vishan Gir 5-4.
Helped on with breaks of 41 and 64, Yousuf seemed cruising to victory taking a commanding 3-0 lead which increased to 4-0, when he came from behind potting blue, pink and black to win the frame 48/45.
With defeat staring him in the face, Vishan made a magnificent comeback. Helped on with breaks of 44, 48 and 48 in the sixth, seventh and eighth frames, Vishan levelled the frame scores 4-4, with the stunned Yousuf reduced to a mere passenger.
The snooker fans braced themselves for another upset but it never came.
In another absorbing encounter that went the full distance, sixth seed Imran Shehzad from Punjab held of the stiff challenge of Sindh’s Shakeel Bhatti 5-4:
Imran was helped on with 45, 42 and 36 points on the trot to which eighth seed Shakeel replied with 62 and 38 in the fourth and eighth frames.
Punjab’s Fahad Asif, making only his second appearance in the ranking circles, shocked all and sundry by with a 5-3 triumph over Amit Parwani.
A day earlier, Amit beat Saleh Mohammad 4-3 in their group match and seemed a likely candidate to reach the quarter-finals when drawn up against Fahad the day before.
The young cueist from Punjab on the attack from the word go, began with a handsome break of 69 and was soon 2-0 ahead before Amit managed to get his bearings. Replying with quick breaks of 69 and 61, Amit was soon on even terms at 2-2.
Fahad however, failed to panic. Continuing to pot fluently he snatched the next two frames to forge ahead 4-2, before Amit in a last gasp drew one back 3-4.
The dream run of wild card entry Abu Saim came to a sad end when he was beaten 5-3 by ninth seed Minhas Malik.
Minhas ran up a comfortable 3-0 lead, before Abu could claw his way back 2-3 by picking up the next two frames.
Pre-quarterfinal results:
Mohammad Yousuf (Sindh) beat Vishan Gir (Sindh) 5-4: 70/27, 78/36, 76/20, 48/45, 45/69, 40/81, 17/74, 35/77, 49/22. Fahad Asif (Punjab) beat Amit Parwani (Sindh) 5-3: 74/8, 61/22, 17/71, 6/78, 74/12, 72/25, 1/69, 62/44. Imran Shehzad (Punjab) beat Shakeel Bhatti (Sindh) 5-4: 20/71, 61/13, 68/63, 29/82, 55/25, 43/58, 75/41, 14/69, 72/2. Arifullah (NWFP) beat Farhan Mirza (Punjab) 5-4: 36/66, 29/42, 57/42, 0/86, 58/25, 63/26, 6/76, 65/19, 56/18. Minhas Malik (Sindh) beat Abu Saim (Punjab) 5-3: 71/38, 78/41, 61/57, 32/59, 52/55, 82/56, 36/61, 76/35. Saleh Mohammad (NWFP) beat Mustafa Hyder (Balochistan) 5-2: 75/23, 91/25, 58/57, 31/65, 82/35, 55/69, 58/16. Atiq Latif Bux (Sindh) beat A. Qadeer Butt (Punjab) 5-1: 61/41, 33/68, 47/9, 69/60, 80/35, 64/32. Naveen Perwani (Sindh) beat Khurram Hussain Agha (Sindh) 5-4: 12/90, 73/49, 64/54, 47/58, 47/62, 61/24, 75/35, 49/64, 74/50.
Line-up for Friday’s quarterfinals:
Mohammad Yousuf v/s Fahad Asif, Imran Shehzad v/s Arifullah, Minhas Malik v/s Saleh Mohammad, Naveen Perwani v/s Atiq Latif Bux.
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