Pakistan ensures final berth, three medals in World Snooker Championship

Pakistan Thursday ensured three medals and a place in the final match of the International Billiards & Snooker Federation (IBSF) World Snooker Championship after the three participating cueists from Pakistan qualified for the semi-final in Doha, Qatar.

The semi-final lineup for the tournament includes Pakistan’s Mohammad Asif, Mohammad Sajjad, Ahsan Ramzan, and Iran’s Amir Sarkosh.

Pakistan’s Mohammad Asif and Ahsan Ramzan will be playing against each other in one of the semi-final matches. The winner will represent Pakistan in the final.

The second semi-final will be against Pakistan’s Mohammad Sajjad and Iran’s Amir Sarkosh.

The semi-finals will be played at 7:00pm later in the evening.

Defending champion Muhammad Asif was the first to qualify for the semi-final after defeating Habib Sabah from Bahrain, with a score of 5-1 on Thursday morning.

Asif took the initial lead by winning the first two frames with a score of 64-16 and 89-12. He played breaks of 62 and 59 in respective frames before losing the third one 4-69. In the fourth frame, Habib Sabah was allowed to pocket only one red ball as Asif extended his lead to 3-1 with a break of 79 to complete the frame 94-1. The next two frames were very competitive but Asif emerged as the winner.

Ahsan Ramzan, who earlier played a break of 147 in the U21 championship, played very well against Abdelrahman Shahin from Egypt. He won the best of nine matches without dropping any frame. Ramzan completed his quarter-final against Shahin with a score of 62-35, 58-49, 65-47, 64-33, and 75-0.

Mohammad Sajjad, in another match, regained victory despite a deficit of 2-3 and successfully won against Mohamed Thaha Irshath from Sri Lanka with a score of 5-3. The Sri Lankan cueist played well but Sajjad’s experience allowed him to overpower the 20-year-old Sri Lankan.

Sajjad won the match with a score of 47-69, 85-1, 81-0, 42-57, 35-84, 61-26, 72-7 and 65-35.