KARACHI: Ahsan Ramzan bounced back from his shocking defeat at the 49th NBP National Snooker Championship, beating Ibrahim Khan of Balochistan 4-1 here at the NBP Sports Complex on Thursday.

Ahsan, who lost to Shahid Shafique of Punjab 4-2 on Wednesday, lost only the third frame before rallying to clinch his first win of the championship 62-28, 65-28, 53-62, 73-8, 66-20.

The third day of the championship witnessed seven century breaks, with Mubashir Raza of Punjab playing two century breaks of 125 and 110. Both the breaks came in the winning cause during the match against Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Amir Shehzad.

Mubashir’s break of 125 is the highest in the championship so far.

Country’s most successful cueist Mohammad Asif — representing National Bank — played a break of 113, while Muhammad Faheem also scored 113. Waseem Abbas, Ahsan Javaid and Abdul Sattar played breaks of 101, 100 and 100, respectively.

In other notable matches, number five seed Abdul Javed suffered his second defeat, losing 4-2 [64-49, 74-44, 10-69, 95-10, 0-77, 81-09] to Junior Asian Under-21 Championship semi-finalist Mohammad Shahbaz.

Asif, who recently won the Saarc title, registered a convincing 4-1 win [85-23, 72-24, 118(59)-8, 117(113)-12] against Zubair Tahir of Punjab.

Sindh’s cueists Umar Naeem, Zulfiqar A. Qadir, Ian Mark John and Abdul Sattar were also among the victors on Thursday.

Umar edged past Bahadur Khan of Balochistan 4-3 in a seesaw match while Zulfiqar lost the first but staged a comeback to beat Zaib Khan, also from Balochistan, 4-2.

Mark John, who scored a century-break on Wednesday, trounced Balochistan’s Jahanzaib Jahangir 4-0 and Sattar downed Punjab’s Shahid Shafique 4-2 on the back of a century break in the second frame.

Punjab’s players, Shahid Aftab, Faheem, Waseem Abbas, Babar Masih, Ahsan Javaid also registered convincing wins.

Shahid crushed KP’s Shahid Saleem 4-1 while Faheem’s 113-break in the penultimate frame spurred him to 4-2 win over Sharjeel Mehmood, also from KP.

Waseem Abbas defeated Sheikh M. Muzammil 4-1, Babar crushed Sindh’s Ayaan Ali 4-0 and Ahsan got the better of KP’s Malik Muzammil 4-2.

KP’s Sirbuland Khan and Suleman Khan, Balochistan’s Adil A. Jabbar and Islamabad’s Faisal Daniyal also recorded triumphs on Thursday.

Published in Dawn, January 24th, 2025