KARACHI: Pakistan’s Haris Tahir confirmed a medal for the country after winning his quarter-final at the 36th Asian Snooker Championship in Qatar against Khalid Kamali of the United Arab Emirates on Wednesday.

Haris overwhelmed Khalid 5-2 in a best-of-nine frame match to book a semi-final against Iran’s Amir Sarkhosh, who defeated his compatriot Sivavosh Mozyani by the same score in their quarter-final.

The other semi-final sees defending champion Pankaj Advani of India taking on Hong Kong’s Cheung Ka Wai.

Haris won the first two frames 64-32 and 94-0 before Khalid fought back to win the third 72-32.

Haris took the fourth 100-32 before Khalid reduced the deficit to one frame after winning the next frame 65-15.

However, Haris sealed his last four spot by winning the next two frames 65-8 and 108-25.

Earlier Tuesday, Haris had defeated Qatar’s Ali Alobaidli 4-2 in a best-of-seven last-16 match. He won 93-8, 75-27, 1-80, 60-51, 60-67, 65-56.

Pakistan’s other representative at the Asian event, Babar Masih, lost in the last-16, falling to a 4-2 defeat to Mozyani with the scores being 22-58, 99-28, 67-24, 0-120, 59-64, 55-73.

Both Babar and Haris had been undefeated in the group stage, which concluded on Monday night.

Haris won his last group game against Cheung 4-1 (39-78, 89-0, 81-44, 108-0, 99-26) while Babar survived a scare before overcoming Qatar’s Alobaidli in a fully stretched battle 70-80, 55-16, 70-22, 73-17, 0-89, 36-59, 68-16.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2021