Bilal faces Babar as Sohail takes on Asif

KARACHI: Unseeded Sohail Shahzad eliminated second seed Mohammad Sajjad while fourth seed Shahram Changezi was overpowered by third seed Mohammad Bilal in the quarter-finals of the Jubilee Insurance 41st National Snooker Championship 2016 here on Thursday.

Top seed Mohammad Asif forced his way into the semi-finals by overcoming unseeded but extremely dangerous Asjad Iqbal, while sixth seed Babar Masih cruised into the last four with a cakewalk victory over unseeded Abdul Javed.

Both the best-of-11-frame semi-finals, to be telecast live on Geo Super, will be played on Friday (today). The first semi-final, due to start at 11 am, will be contested between the seeded duo of Mohammad Bilal and Babar Masih and will be followed by the encounter between Mohammad Asif and Sohail Shahzad.

Sajjad, who had survived a scare at the hands of unseeded Abdul Sattar in the pre-quarter-finals less than 24 hours ago, was not so fortunate in the quarter-final, which also went to the full distance of nine frames.

The two times national champion from Sargodha was unable to turn the tide in the decisive ninth frame as Sohail, a prolific local cueist, produced the goods to extend his remarkable unbeaten run in the competition.

Sohail succeeded in taming Sajjad 5-4 with the frame scores of 17-60, 84-04, 65-25, 84-35, 113-17, 1-112, 26-57, 55-65, 61-26, having compiled a break of 97 in the fifth frame.

Although Sajjad returned the compliment with a break of 78 in the very next frame and followed it up by winning the seventh frame, Sohail won the battle by taking the last couple of frames.

Third seed Bilal came up with stunning performance to overwhelm fourth seed Shahram 5-1 with the frame scores of 8-64, 108-27, 59-55, 82-20, 63-23, 73-7.

Shahram, who was also undefeated in the competition, drew the first blood but Bilal came into his own with a break of 96 in the second frame and he didn’t let the momentum slip.

Top seed Asif came from behind to outwit Asjad Iqbal 5-3 with the frame scores of 74-50, 50-81, 5-100, 1-130, 74-49, 73-35, 67-20, 58-20.

Asif, a former world champion from Faisalabad, was trailing 1-3 but came back strongly to win four frames on a trot to secure his place in the semi-finals.

Asjad, one of the most accomplished cueists of the country from Sargodha, showed his skills with breaks of 100 and 89 in successive frames to move 3-1 up. But he had no answer to the brilliance of Asif in the last four frames.

Sixth seed Babar overran unseeded Javed, who had created a sensation by reaching the quarter-finals in his first-ever appearance in the mainstream circuit.

The youngster from Rawalpindi, however, ran out of steam against his fancied rival who dominated the game from the outset to clinch it leisurely 5-1 with the scores of 99-0, 13-71, 81-17, 75-61, 47-36, 90-5.

Babar began with a bang, firing a break of 86 in the opening frame. He was beaten in the next frame but went on to win the next four, chalking up a break of 53 in the third frame and finishing it off with a classy break of 89 in the sixth frame.