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KARACHI: It was a good day for Pakistan at the Asian Snooker Championship as all three of its cueists ended up victorious in their respective group matches on Monday.
Muhammad Sajjad and Imran Shehzad won their second consecutive matches, while Shahid Aftab recovered from his first-game loss to win on Sunday, to record his first win.
Sajjad recovered from being 0-2 down against Ali Mohsen Khamis to win the next four frames and register a 4-2 win. Last year’s runner-up, Sajjad, won the match with a 24-67, 50-59, 67-17, 94-31, 86-04, 73-25 score against his Qatari opponent to maintain a 100 per cent record in the tournament so far. He beat Ahmed Hassan Hadi of Iraq 4-1 in his opening match.
Imran Shehzad, meanwhile, dropped a set against Mubarak Ali Owais of Kuwait but ended up winning the tie in five sets 56-23, 74-09, 68-16, 46-59, 53-35. Like Sajjad, Imran had also been successful in his first match of the tournament when he beat Michaal Angelo Mengario of the Philippines in a straight-frames win 77-23, 67-41, 65-27, 59-33.
Pakistan’s third cueist Muhammad Shahid Aftab was also among the winners with his win over India’s Manan Chand. The six-frame set concluded with a score of 85-15, 67-34, 58-37, 36-64, 34-57, 57-38. Shahid lost his first match of the tournament to Muhammad Rais Senzahi of Afghanistan.
Top two cueists from each group will qualify for the quarter-finals of tournament being played at Indore’s Yeshwant Club .
Sajjad’s next match is scheduled against Adnan Ahmed Abdulla of Jordan while Imran Shehzad will play Kamal Chawla of India on Tuesday and Shahid will face Hossain Vafeai of Iran.
