Sajjad, Shahzad bite the dust in India

Duo suffers first defeat in Asian Snooker Championship.

KARACHI:

Pakistan’s Mohammad Sajjad and Imran Shahzad suffered defeats on the fourth day of the Asian Snooker Championship underway in Indore, India.

In contrast to the third day when all the Pakistani cueists registered victories, yesterday saw the national contestants on the losing end.

Top-seed Sajjad, who claimed successive wins in his first two group A matches, suffered his first loss of the tournament as he went down fighting against Iran’s Mohammad Lababi in a marathon battle that stretched to seven frames.

Sajjad got off to a good start and claimed the first two frames 42-16, 65-41 to secure a 2-0 lead. The top-seed, also last year’s finalist, lost his rhythm thereafter and lost the next three frames 47-60, 42-57, 39-54.

Although he made a comeback by winning the penultimate frame 62-33, it was the Iranian who claimed victory by comfortably winning the decisive frame  with a score of 52-1.

Shahzad falls to Indian opponent

Meanwhile, Pakistan suffered another setback when Shahzad, who also won his previous two battles, succumbed to Indian opponent Kamal Chawla 4-1.

Shahzad failed to capitalise on his first-frame performance which he won 111-0, including an 85-point break, and lost the match by losing four consecutive frames. Chawla, despite a thrashing in the first frame, came back strongly to win the next four frames with scores of 96-23, 58-26, 72-32, 69-34 in the group F clash.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 27^th, 2011.