October 30, 2002	Wednesday	Sha’aban 23,1423

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CAIRO. Oct 29: Pakistan’s Saleh Muhammad ended his league outing Tuesday in style with a commanding 4-0 victory over Warren Horsely of South Africa in the 2002 World Snooker Championship.

Highly talented Saleh finished second in group ‘C’ on a inferior two frame difference with nine wins out of ten matches behind China’s Ding Junhui.

Saleh was unable to score any big breaks but registered steady 67-49, 75-34, 68-01, 65-21 victory. Saleh ended the match with a neat break of 45 after having made small breaks of 46 in the second and 30 and 38 in third frame.

Debutant Khurram Hussain Agha, barring some extra-ordinary upsets also have secured a place in the knock-out stage of the championship when he defeated Michel Philbin of Scotland 4-3 after a exciting tussle late Monday night.

Khurram made the break of 64 in the decider to chalk out to record 29-75, 65-55, 68-43, 47-54, 0-68, 74-38, 61-14.

Saleh had easily lost to Ding twice in Busan Asian Games but Pakistani took his revenge with a fantastic win.

After Wednesday rest day, the knock-out of the tournament will start from Thursday.

Top seed Richard King of England crashed out of the championship after he went down to Lui Song of China 4-1, who emerged group ‘A’ champion.

Also joined him for the last 32 round from the same group included Maged Shafik (Egypt), Chris McCBreen (New Zealand) and Colin Bingham (Northern Ireland).

From group ‘B’ Martin McCrudden (Republic of Ireland) , Somporn Kunthawung (Thailand), Neil Robertson (Australia) and Wael Talaat (Egypt).

Mark Boyle (Scotland) earned a place in the knock-out stage from group ‘D’ while remaining three places were to be decided later.

Tim English (Wales) with nine straight wins and Peng Wei Guo (China) have entered the last 32 stage from group ‘E’. Two more places will be filled later.

Alex Borg (Malta), Martin Gould (England) and Muhammad Mutafa Shehab (UAE) stormed into the knock stage from group ‘F’.

Jaston Watson (Republic of Ireland), Muhammad Sultan Al Joker (UAE), Khurram Agha (Pakistan) are already in the last 32 from group ‘G’.

Surge Das (Belgium) with nine wins from eight matches have entered the knock out stage from group ‘H’ while three places are still wide open and any of the four players are in run for a place in the knock out.

Ferreira for ties: Four-time World Billiards Champion and current Indian coach Michael Ferreira Tuesday called for regular multi-nation regional snooker series to raise the overall standard of the game in the sub-continent. “For this kind of series besides India and Pakistan we can invite players from China, Thailand, Hong Kong, UAE, to conduct the event rotation basis,” 67-year-old Ferreita.

“Currently because of political difficulties we can not organize Indo-Pak series and multi-nation series will be better” he said.

He said Pakistan and Indian players without playing against the best in Asia, cannot raise the standard of their game and match Europeans, who are ruling the sport at amateur and professional level.

“Despite his immense talent Saleh is under achiever. Keeping in view his talent he (Saleh) should have won Asian and world title by now, he observed.

He said Pakistan got a lot of potential in snooker and if PBSA now concentrate at the junior level they can prepare and groom players for future.

He supported the resumption of sporting ties between Pakistan and India which hoped would benefit both the countries. Ferreira showing sporting gesture gave brief coaching and some valuable tips to Pakistan number one Khurram.—APP