Asjad, Ali fail to reach NBP Ranking Snooker knockout stage

KARACHI: Third seed Asjad Iqbal and eighth seed Ali Haider failed to make it to the knockout stage of the 12th NBP Ranking Snooker Championship 2020 whose preliminary round matches concluded here at the NBP Sports Complex in Clifton on Friday.

The six other seeded cueists, Muhammad Asif, Shahid Aftab, Ahsan Javaid, Babar Masih, Mubashir Raza and Naseem Akhtar, made it to the pre-quarter-finals alongwith 10 unseeded participants.

Muhammad Sajjad, a former national champion, went down fighting against fifth seed Babar Masih despite having fired a couple of century breaks (128 and 107) in a tense seven-frame duel. He, however, succeeded in reaching the next round.

All the eight pre-quarters, to be spread over a couple of sessions, will be contested on Saturday (today). In the morning session, due to start at 10 am, fourth seed Ahsan will be pitted against Muhammad Bilal, fifth seed Babar will lock horsns with Haris Tahir, eighth seed Naseem will combat Ahsan Ramzan and Muhammad Saleem will take on Bahadur Khan.

In the afternoon session, scheduled to begin at 1 pm, top seeded Asif will be confronting Zulfiqar Abdul Qadir, second seed Shahid will be up against Asif Toba, sixth seed Mubashir will be in action against Muhammad Sajjad whose brother Muhammad Ijaz will be meeting Sharjeel Mahmood.

Asif and Bahadur advanced to the last 16 from the Group A while Shahid and Bilal made it from the Group B.

The unseeded duo of Saleem and Toba grabbed the two slots from the Group C, following the elimination of third seed Asjad, while Ahsan and Zulfiqar secured the two slots from the Group D.

Sajjad and Babar sailed through to the pre-quarters from the Group E with Ahsan Ramzan and Mubashir Raza making the cut from the Group F.