KARACHI, July 25: Second seed Saleh Muhammad will be facing stiff challenge in a bid to defend his crown in the 12th Red and White Cup National Ranking Snooker Championship which commenced at Snooker Area Club Gizri from Saturday.

Besides Khurram Agha and Muhammad Yousuf, fourth seed Naveen Perwani, 6th seed Imran Shahzad and 7th seed Farhan Mirza, who is staging a comeback after missing Style Snooker will be the main challenger for Saleh along with a bunch of promising youngsters like Atiq Latif Bakhsh, Muhammad Nazir and Shah Khan.

Former world number three Saleh drawn in pool “B” will take on Punjab’s Saqib Butt in his opening league tie just afternoon.

Pakistan number one Khurram will be facing Janan Khan from Balochistan.

As many as 16 league matches will be played on four session Saturday. Third seed Muhammad Yousuf will meet former Sindh Champion Mirza Shadab Baig at 3.00 p.m..

In the meantime some of the leading cueists including Khurram, Muhammad Yousuf, Saleh Muhammad, Farhan Mirza and others have strenuous training and practice session at the new parlor which is holding its first national ranking event.

Following is schedule of matches other seeded players on the first day. Naveen Perwani (Sindh) vs Muhammad Akhlas (Sindh) Atiq Latif Bakhsh (KPT) vs Yousuf haroon (Sindh) Imran Shahzad (Punjab) vs Masood Ahmed (Sindh) Farhan Mirza (Punjab) vs Kashif Khan (Sindh) Shakeel Bhatti (Sindh) vs Raees Khan (Punjab).—APP