Three Pakistanis reach Asian Snooker Championship pre quarter-finals

Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association manager Naveed Kapadia believes country will win a medal

KARACHI: Pakistan's Muhammad Bilal, Babar Masih and Asjad Iqbal have made it to the ACBS Asian Men Snooker Championship 2019 pre quarter-finals in Doha.

Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association manager Naveed Kapadia believes that the country will win at least one medal at the event.

"Our players have performed really well," Kapadia told The Express Tribune. "In fact, if the pre quarter-finals go well, Babar and Bilal will be playing the quarter-final against each other, which means at least one of them will reach the semi-finals and there is a medal."

The tournament was featuring continent's top 50 players from 17 countries divided into 12 groups. Top two players from each group qualified for the last 24 knock-out round and top eight group winners qualified directly for last-16 berth, whereas 12 players who were second in each group played the last-24 round.



According to Kapadia, Asian 6 Red Championship 2018 silver medallists Babar and Bilal had the best run out of four Pakistani cueists in the competition.

Babar remained unbeaten in Group D, as did Bilal in Group B, whereas Zulfiqar A Qadir and Asjad Iqbal lost one match each in Groups H and F respectively.

Bilal defeated Qatar's Badar Abdullah Sharshani 4-0, along with Jordan's Sharaf Maaitah 4-0 in the remaining matches on Day 2, while Babar outclassed India's Laxman Rawat 4-1 and Iqbal beat Iran's Arsalan Esmaeilnezhad 4-0 to reach the knock-out stages from Group matches.