Pakistan juniors reach knockout round of IBSF U21 World Championship

Haris Tahir led Group Q, winning all of his three matches

KARACHI: Pakistan's top junior players Naseem Akhtar and Haris Tahir cruised into the IBSF U21 World Championships knockout round as they finished their group matches in Jinan, China on Sunday.

The Sahiwal-based youngsters became the first Pakistanis to win the IBSF U18 world title last year, but they saw an the exit from the event in quarter-finals earlier this week. However the duo were solid in the group stages of the U21 competition.

Naseem began his campaign with a win against Germany's Loris Lehmann; 80-11, 78-5, 91-7 in the opening match and then went on to defeat Irish teenager Sean Devenney  3-2 in a marathon match, however he lost his last group tie against China's Wu Yezi 3-0, who is topping the pool. Naseem has a frame difference of +2 in Group R.

Meanwhile, Tahir  led Group Q, winning all of his three matches. He completed the group stage matches on top as he defeated Belgium's Sybren Sokolowski 3-2 on Sunday. He outplayed Thailand's Kisada Chumjit 3-2 and New Zealand's Adam Lilley 3-2 to have the frame difference of +3 out of three matches. Tahir recorded the second highest break of the tournament. He scored 142 in the third frame of his match.

Pakistan were fielding three cueists in the event, debutante Umar Khan finished fourth out of five players in his Group H and will not be in the knock-out round of 32.