NJI National Snooker Championship underway
The 36th NJI National Snooker Championship 2011 is being held at the Karachi Gymkhana Billiards Hall. There were no major upsets in the tournament but for one on Thursday, with almost all the dominating names still in the run for the Rs 150,000 prize money.
In the Thursday’s fixtures, Imran Shehzad, Sohail Shehzad, Muhammad Asif Toba, defending champion Muhammad Sajjad, former national champion Muhammad Asif and Naveen Perwani secured victories to reach the last eight, alongside Muhammad Shahid and Muhammad Sultan.
In the first match of the day, competition between Punjab’s Muhammad Javed and Sindh’s Muhammad Sultan was tough. Javed dominated the first five sets, but when the score was 4-1 in his favour, Sultan came from behind and took control. He snatched the following four frames in succession, ending the nine-frame match to win the game and reach the final eight.
In another match-up, second seed Sohail Shehzad beat Umair Alam easily with 5-3 on the scoreboard.
Punjab’s un-seeded Muhammad Shahid defeated Rabail Gul of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, compiling three dominating breaks of 70, 92 and 45 to reach the quarter-finals with a 5-3 win.
Punjab’s Muhammad Sajjad, who was runner-up at the Asian Snooker Championships in Thailand last year, cruised over Abdul Sattar of Sindh. His safe-game tactics gave no chances to Abdul Sattar, beating him in straight frames with dominating breaks of 52 in the first and 78 in the third frame.
Pakistan ace Imran Shehzad dropped just two frames in his match against Nauman Awan of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa before taking the game, carving brilliant breaks of 50, 71 and 67.
Former national champion Muhammad Asif beat former national junior champion Asjad Iqbal 5-2 in their match-up.
The only upset in Thursday’s matches was the defeat of former World and Asian champion Muhammad Yousuf at the hands of Asif Toba of Punjab. Yousuf tried to challenge his opponent several times, but could not dictate the terms of the game and lost with a disappointing 1-5 score.
The quarter-final fixtures will see Imran Shehzad facing Muhammad Asif Toba, Muhammad Asif facing Muhammad Sajjad, Sohail Shehzad to clash against Mohammad Shahid and Naveen Perwani set up against Muhammad Sultan.
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