KARACHI, Sept 13: In a day of upsets, the top three seeds Khurram Hussain Agha, Saleh Mohammad and Mohammad Yousuf, had their pride dented when all three tasted defeat on the second day of the 18th Latif Masters Top 16 snooker league on Monday at the Karachi Club.

The top seed Khurram Hussain Agha, was routed by giant killer Rambel Gul 4-0. Rambel seems to be the bogeyman for Khurram. This is the fourth successive time that the top seed has met his Waterloo against Rambel.

But the young man that stole the show on Monday was Abu Saim. After defeating the fifth seed Atiq Latif Bux 4-2, Abu continued to be a thorn in the sides of the top seeds when he toppled second seed Saleh Mohammad 4-2 in the morning session and later in the afternoon, shocked third seed Mohammad Yousuf by the same margin.

However, the top three bounced back into contention, Khurram Hussain Agha stung into action reduced the hapless Amit Parwani to a mere passenger 4-0, helped on with fluent breaks of 59 and 54 in the second and third frames.

Saleh brushed aside the challenge of Shakeel Bhatti 4-1, with a parting gift of 103 points on the trot in the final frame. Yousuf chalking up breaks of 52 and 69 in the third and fourth frames, whipped Shakeel 4-0, to present the bearded cueist his second defeat of the day.

In fact Shakeel, seeded a year ago as Pakistan No.8, has lost all his four matches he has played to date and with three more matches in his pool to play, seems to be out of contention in this tournament.

Going into the third day on Tuesday, the only cueist to have an unbeaten record is the fourth seed Naveen Perwani. Pakistan snooker team skipper after winning both his matches on the first day, swept past his cousin Amit Parwani 4-1 with breaks of 61 and 40.

The facing giant-killer Rambel Gul, Naveen playing superb snooker potting par excellence seemed to be cruising past his opponent winning the first three frames 58/17, 75/29, 73/1 with immaculate ease.

But Rambel seemed to have awakened from his deep slumber. He pocketed the next three frames 66-11, 77/26, 77/53 to level the frames scores 3-3. The snooker fans were now preparing to witness another seed crash to defeat against Rambel.

But it was not to be. With the lead changing over hands on several occasions, Naveen with winning breaks 39 and 44 in the final frame came through a happy winner, pinching the last frame 73/33.

Fifth seed Atiq Latif Bux, after his disastrous start on Sunday going down to Abu Saim, beat veteran Mohammad Akhlas 4-1 which included a fine break of 88 in the final frame. Then facing the crafty left-hander Vishan Gir, unbeaten on Sunday, Atiq came through another 4-1 winner, although Vishan had a break of 54 in the third frame.

Earlier Vishan faced another setback losing to Minhas Malik, who himself then faced a defeat, when Mohammad Akhlas beat him by a 4-2 margin to win his first match in the tournament.

Sixth seed Imran Shehzad also had a bad start going down to Rambel Gul, but playing attacking snooker Imran won his last three matches to also be in contention for a semi-final berth.

On Monday, Imran beat his Punjab counterpart Mohammad Asif 4-2, then playing another of his colleagues Mohammad Nazir, he won again also by a 4-2 margin. Imran had breaks of 42 and 52 in the third and fourth frames, while Nazir chalked up a break of 45 in the second.

Shah Khan from NWFP, having a rough ride in this top 16 league, lost his third consecutive match, this time to Mohammad Nazir 4-1. However he did gain some satisfaction when he beat Mohammad Asif, who has yet to win a match, by a 4-1 margin.

FOLLOWING WERE THE RESULTS ON THE SECOND DAY: