Muhammad Asif beats Sohail Shahzad in quarters: 37th National Snooker Championship 2012
Second seed Mohammad Asif secured an easy victory over local cueman, Sohail Shahzad by the score line of 5-3 to book a semi-final spot at the 2012 Jubilee Insurance 37th National Snooker Championship in Karachi Gymkhana. Faisalabad’s Asif had a tussling
first session before the interval as Shahzad was quite resistant at the baize.
The former National Snooker Champion sprang back into the game when he was trailing Shahzad by 0-1. Asif was put under immense pressure by the experienced Shahzad but the Faisalabad-born cueist did not lose his focus and kept his cool to eventually claim
the quarter-final victory. During the match up, the 2009 National Snooker Championship winner pocketed some outstanding knocks to unsettle his opponent.
Shahzad grabbed the first scrappy frame win quite easily with a magnificent score line of 24-65 to lead the quarter-final 0-1. Asif came strong at the baize in the second frame but his progress was stopped by Shahzad when he shot a couple of small breaks.
Asif was at the brink of tumbling 0-2 down when he capitalised back to hit the winning spot with just one point at 43-42 and pulled level at 1-1.
Asif settled his nerves in the next frame with a superb clearance of 79 as the potter took the match lead by 2-1 with a third frame victory at 93-1. The fourth frame was clinched 25-65 by Shahzad and the encounter was leveled at 2-2.
The former champ then showed his classy game in the next two frames and grabbed back-to-back frame wins by impressive points at 63-20 and 60-25 to regain the lead by 4-2.
After tumbling two frames down, Shahzad tried to get back into the game with a seventh set triumph 18-76, to move within one frame up at 4-3. Before he could build any hopes of winning the match, Asif finished the game with a cracking blow in the eighth
set by the score line of 69-57.
Asif has now booked his place in the semi-final against the former two-time National Snooker Champion, Muhammad Sajjad.
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