Mubashir, Khurram crash out of National Snooker Championship

KARACHI: Fifth seed Mubashir Raza and seventh seed Khurram Hussain Agha were eliminated as a total of 10 unseeded cueists, including wild card entrant Muhammad Majid Ali, reached the knockout phase of the Jubilee Insurance 43rd National Snooker Championship 2018 whose preliminary round matches concluded here at the Karachi Gymkhana on Saturday.

Top seed Asjad Iqbal, second seed Muhammad Asif, third seed Muhammad Bilal, fourth seed Shahid Aftab, sixth seed Zulfiqar Abdul Qadir and eighth seed Babar Masih forced their way into the pre-quarter-finals along with the unseeded lot of Ali Haider, Muhammad Naseem Akhtar, Agha Bilawal, Aakash Rafique, Muhammad Majid Ali, Qadeer Abbas, Muhammad Ahsan Javaid, Abdul Sattar, Sohail Shahzad and Sultan Muhammad.

All the eight pre-quarters will be contested on Sunday (today). In the morning session, due to start at 10 am, Muhammad Bilal (Pjb) will take on Qadeer Abbas (Pjb), Ahsan Javaid (Pjb) will lock horns with Shahid Aftab (Pjb), Naseem Akhtar (Pjb) will be pitted against Ali Haider (Pjb) and Babar Masih (Pjb) will be up against Sohail Shahzad (Sindh).

In the afternoon session, scheduled to commence at 1 pm, Asjad Iqbal (Pjb) will be up against Muhammad Asif (Pjb), Aakash Rafique (KPK) will clash with Zulfiqar Qadir (Sindh), Majid Ali (Pjb) will combat Agha Bilawal (Sindh) and Abdul Sattar (Sindh) will be playing against Sultan Muhammad (Sindh).

At the end of the preliminary round matches, contested by 54 cueists, Asjad Iqbal and Ali Haider qualified for the knockout phase from Group A, Naseem Akhtar and Muhammad Asif advanced from Group B, Muhammad Bilal and Agha Bilawal cruised from Group C while Aakash Rafique and Shahid Aftab progressed from Group D.

Majid Ali and Qadeer Abbas made it to the pre-quarters from Group E, Ahsan Javaid and Zulfiqar Qadir progressed from Group F, Abdul Sattar and Sohail Shahzad qualified from Group G while Babar Masih and Sultan Muhammad moved ahead from Group H.