Three in three for Pakistan cueists

Sajjad, Aftab, Shahzad claim wins in Asian championship.

KARACHI:


It was a superb day for Pakistan as all three cueists won their respective matches on the third day of the Asian Snooker Championship underway in Indore, India.


Asian number two Mohammad Sajjad beat Qatar’s Ali Mohsen Kharni, Pakistan number one Shahid Aftab defeated home cueist Mannan Chandra while Imran Shahzad outclassed Mubarak Al Owais of Kuwait.

Aftab bounces back

The Pakistan number one, who went down to Afghanistan’s Raees Senzahi in his first match, was impressive against Chandra and beat the Indian player 4-2 to open his account.

The Faisalabad cueist started off positively and won three consecutive frames 85-15, 67-34 and 58-37. Chandra, backed by the home crowd, staged a comeback by winning the fourth frame 64-36 before securing the fifth 54-34 to make the match exciting.

However, Aftab shattered the crowd’s hopes by snatching the tense sixth frame 58-57 and register Pakistan’s first win of the day.

Sajjad heads Group A


Sajjad, last year’s runner-up, had to fight back to register his second consecutive win in the tournament as he beat Kharnis in the Group A match.

Sajjad went down in the first two frames 67-24, 59-50 before a remarkable recovery was staged to win the next four frames to seal the 4-2 win. After comfortably winning the third frame 67-17, the Sargodha-born player showed his class by winning the next three frames by even bigger margins: 94-31, 86-4 and 73-25.

Sajjad currently heads Group A courtesy two successive victories including a 4-1 win over Ahmed Hussein Hadi of Iraq.

Shahzad claims second win

Meanwhile, Shahzad showed great mental stamina to bag his second win in Group F.

Shahzad showed no signs of exhaustion in outclassing Owais of Kuwait after he had won his first match 4-0 a few hours ago.

He dominated most part of the match and used his vast experience to overcome glitches in the middle while recording a 4-1 win.

In his first match, he overwhelmed Michael Angelo Mengorio of Philippines with a 77-23, 67-41, 65-27 and 59-33 scoreline.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 26th, 2011.
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