Sajjad out, Imran through in Thailand

Asian number two cueist out after four straight losses.

KARACHI: Asian number two Mohammad Sajjad was dumped out of the Asian 6-Reds Snooker Championship after failing to win any of his four matches. Pakistan number one Imran Shahzad, though, progressed to last-32 after finishing with two wins in four games.

Sajjad performed better on the day than the previous ones but he was not good enough and went down 5-4 to Mohammad Lababi of Iran before failing against China’s Yu Delu 5-3. The twin defeats knocked him out in the first round of the tournament, underway in Thailand.

Sajjad fails to impress

Lababi took the opening two frames 58-7, 40-7 before Sajjad won the next 31-17. The sea-saw match continued with Lababi winning 39-13 before Sajjad clinched the fifth and sixth frames 45-0, 40-9 to level 3-3. The Iranian cueist took the next frame 50-6 but Sajjad drew level again 49-0. However, Lababi clinched the decider 51-0.

In his second match, Sajjad led 3-1 before Delu won the next four frames 33-23, 47-17, 40-0, 43-0 to progress to the second round.

“It was a tough tournament,” Sajjad told The Express Tribune. “Lack of practice for the six-red format is the reason for my failure. We were playing the national championship till the day before flying out.”

Shahzad progresses

Meanwhile, Shahzad kept Pakistan’s hopes alive in the tournament after beating Bangladesh’s Mofazzal Hossain 5-1.

However, like Sajjad, Shahzad had to be content with one win out of two games after going down to Malaysia’s Moh Keen Hoo 5-1.

Shahzad won the opening four frames against Hossain 26-11, 32-20, 42-09, 58-07 before suffering a slight setback. However, the national number one recovered soon clinching the next frame 42-7 to seal the win and cement a place in the next round.

The cueist’s vulnerability was then exposed by Hoo on his way to a 5-1 defeat.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 16^th, 2011.