LAHORE: While India led in the first round of both the Open Team and Women’s events semi-final, Pakistan and UAE, competing each other in these categories are ahead in one event apiece on the penultimate day of the BFAME Bridge Championship here at a local hotel on Thursday.

In the Senior Team section, India and Pakistan qualified for the final to be held on Friday. While in the Mixed Team event India take on the UAE as third-placed Pakistan and bottom-placed Jordan were ousted from the race for the decider.

The first round of the semi-finals, comprising three phases, in the Open Team event saw Pakistan collect 31, 38 and 23 points to aggregate 92.5 while the UAE earned 31, 37 and 23 points to get a total of 87.0. The next round starts on Friday.

In the other semi-final, Indians were leading with 108.5 victory points (32, 32, 44) against Bangladesh, who obtained 93.00 (26, 40, 27).

The UAE were leading the first round of the Women Team’s semi-final after getting 121.00 points (65, 18, 38) against Pakistan, who secured 80.5 VPs (20, 43, 17).

In the same category, India (112.5) were in front against Palestine (80.5) at the end of the first round.

Meanwhile in the Senior Team’s last round India (221.98) qualified for the final as top team while Pakistan (216.46) also fini­shed closely. The two teams meet in the all-imp­ortant decider on Friday.

In the Mixed Team section, India (235.59) reac­hed the final where they meet the second-placed UAE (183.22). Pakistan (152.40), meanwhile, were ousted from the race.

Published in Dawn, May 12th, 2023