IBSF World Championship: PBSA president pleased with Sajjad’s bronze medal

Pakistan cueist loses to 16-year-old Xintong 7-5 in semi-final.

KARACHI: Pakistan Billiards and Snooker Association (PBSA) President Alamgir Sheikh was satisfied with his players’ performance in the IBSF World Championship in Latvia.

Mohammad Sajjad lost his semi-final against a teenager from China. His defeat ended Pakistan’s hopes or retaining the world title after Mohammad Asif’s win in last year’s edition.

Sajjad was unlucky to go down 7-5 to Zhao Xintong, despite having an upper hand in most parts of the match. He even went on to score a century break in the nail-biting encounter, but unfortunately caved in during the closing stages of the contest.

The Sargodha-born player was closing in on a victory having built a lead of 5-3, but it was not his day as Xintong made a miraculous recovery of winning the match by pocketing four consecutive frames to book his place in the finals.

The Chinese cueist won with a score-line of 74-39, 0-115(100), 84-08, 19-84(56), 25-70, 103-0(56), 0-85, 24-68, 59-12, 75-61, 59-18 and 79-13.

“Sajjad has claimed a bronze medal in the world championship, which is a real positive sign for Pakistan,” Sheikh told The Express Tribune.

“He has been our man of the tournament and it is really pleasing to see that the overall graph of Pakistan snooker is going up.

“Sajjad won the world team championship with Asif, and to go from there to appearing in a semi-final of an individual event is heartening.”

Other than Sajjad, Shahid Aftab made it to last-32 of the event but he was beaten by India’s Shahbaz Adil Khan – who also knocked out Asif in a last-64 match.

Another Pakistan cueist Imran Shehzad lost in the opening phase of the knockout stage.

“This is the time to support our players. Pakistan must back Asif and help him make a strong comeback as he has the potential of winning more laurels for the country in the years ahead.”

Published in The Express Tribune, December 9^th, 2013.

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