CAIRO, Oct. 26: Pakistan number two Saleh Muhammad continued his fine run in 2002 World Snooker Championship with an impressive 4-0 victory over Poland’s Marcin Nitschke in pool “C” to remain on course for place in the last 32 Friday.

Unseeded Saleh, who suffered a surprise defeat against Chih-Wei Ku of Taiwan five days ago, had staged great recovery since losing that match.

Playing with consummate ease, the Peshawar star cueist took just 54 minutes to send Polish player packing by inflicting him his third defeat 54-25, 129-0, 68-29, 54-08.

Showing consistency in his traditional break building Saleh started with a break of 42 in the opening frame added two neatly chalked breaks of 50 and 75 in the second and ended with a break of 46 in the deciding start.

Diminutive Saleh took time to settle down. But he looked in his strides after he made the break of 42 in opening frame. Saleh, potting from angles as his opponent Nitschke watched helplessly by sitting on his chair.

After compiling a break of 50 in the second frame Saleh was in spectacular touch as fired another break of 75 in the same frame to dampened the spirit of his rival and earned handsome applause from spectators.

Nitschke offered a brief resistance in the third frame but a smart break of 33 by Saleh increased his lead to 3-0. Saleh build another break of 46 in the final frame.

With five red balls still on the table polish player looking disheartened conceded the match.

On Sunday Khurram Agha will take on African Champion Hisham Abbas of Egypt in the afternoon session and Saleh meets Oliver Auns of Estonia in the evening session starting 10.00pm PST.

The day six of the championship saw Australian Steve Mifsud smashing a clearance break of 138 against Rune Kempe of Denmark but still ended 3-4 losers in a thrilling encounter.

After struggling in the first three frames, Mifsud whacked the clearance in the fourth frame, he also won the fifth to make it 2-3. However Denish picked up the last two frames to shock 8th seed Mifsud.

The Aussies however equalled Egypt’s Wael Talaat 138 constructed three days ago.

At the end of 270 matches in the championship only seven players remained unbeaten sofar, having won all their six matches.

They included top seed Richard King (England), second seed Somporn Kunthawang (Thailand), Martin McCrudden (Republic of Ireland), third seed Ding Junhui (China), fourth seed Mark Boyle (Scotland), fifth seed Tim English (England), Pang Wei Guo (China).

Meanwhile, Pakistan will officially bid for 2005 World Snooker Championship, Team manager Wahid Qadir said Saturday.

He said he had been instructed by President Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA) to bid the prestigious event for year 2005.

Wahid will be represent Pakistan in Annual General Meeting (AGM).

Pakistan staged the Red and White world championship in 1993 which is still remembered as one of the best organized event in the history of snooker.

International Billiards and Snooker Association (IBSF) AGM will be held on Oct 31 where bid will be presented by the Pakistan delegate.

IBSF had already allocated the 2003 world contest to China and 2004 edition of world snooker to the Netherlands.

Besides conducting one world championship, Pakistan had the honour of staging Asian championships in 1991, 1998 and year 2002.—APP