KARACHI, June 4: The two-day Worldwide Pair contest started simultaneously on Friday evening in several bridge playing countries including USA, Canada, Italy, Japan, Australia, Jordan, India, Pakistan, Bahamas, UK and Indonesia. The results would take three to four days to be completed.

In Pakistan, the contest was held simultaneously at two venues of Karachi, Lahore Gymkhana Club and Islamabad Club.

Islamabad’s Tariq Aziz-Javed Khalid topped rankings in Pakistan after they scored 72 per cent and overall 689 per cent in world rankings to stand on 16th position.

They had scored 70.63 per cent last year in the same contest and finished among top twenty in the world.

The Karachi Bridge Association witnessed the biggest gathering where 29 pairs competed.

From the East-West direction, M A Ansari-Saeed Ansari scored 70.14 per cent to finish on top. Gulzar Bilal-Hamid Mohiuddin gathered 64.37 per cent and Rubina Hye-Hasnain made 57.74 per cent.

From the North-South direction, Masud Salim pairing with Tariq Rasheed Khan collected the highest 65.66 per cent, followed by Sultan Siddiqui-Rashid Jafer 60.82 per cent. Wazir Durrani-Shahab Saeed finished third with 55.16 per cent.

At the Karachi Club, Raza Naqvi-Anwer Kamal topped with 55.93 per cent from the North-South direction followed by Ziaullah Baig-Hamid Mohiuddin 50.11 per cent and Ashfaq Tola-Siddiq Essa 50.96 per cent.

From the East-West direction, Hasan Askari-Tehsin Gheewala scored 63.10 per cent quite far ahead of their nearest rivals Ashraf Kothari-Hussein Jafer 53.43 per cent and Qamar Puri-Mubashir Puri 51.44 per cent.

Ahsan-Zia won the contest at Lahore Gymkhana by a score of 57.10 per cent followed by another pair Jehangir-Farrukh who collected 53.20 per cent.—PPI