01 December 2004	Wednesday	18 Shawwal 1425

KARACHI, Nov 30: Khurram Hussain Agha advanced to the knockout stage of 30th World IBSF snooker championship winning his eighth league encounter out of nine when he defeated Scotland's Richy Mcdonald 4-2 frames on Monday night.

According to the details available on Tuesday, Khurram booked his place in the knock-out stage to be played on nine frames. Despite his defeat Mcdonald too advanced to the next phase.

The other two in group G to join Khurram and Richy in the knockout stages to be played from Wednesday were Mark Allen from the Netherlands who had also won eight out of nine and Au Chi Wai from Hong Kong who won seven out of nine he had played.

Khurram playing impressively clinched the first three frames 86-4, 60-59, 102-2 with breaks of 70 and 61. Mcdonald made a comeback in the next two frames claiming them 66-55 and 93-30 with fine breaks of 44 and 93 which put him back on track.

Khurram losing two frames which made the game 3-2 sensed the danger and hit back in the sixth frame to outclass his opponent 65-41 thus closing the match 4-2 in his favour.

Last year's runner-up Saleh Mohammad who was also leading group A by winning eight out of nine matches made sure of a place the the knock out stage. He is joined by Gavin Pantall (Wales), Cai Jianzhong (China) and Stefan Marcis (Netherlands).

Saleh was to meet Marcis in his last league match in the last session last Tuesday while Khurram was to face Jean Marc Beauchamp from France in his last league match. -Agencies