KARACHI: As many as five seeded cueists were knocked down in the pre-quarter-finals of the 12th NBP Ranking Snooker Championship 2020 here at the NBP Sports Complex in Clifton on Saturday.
Sharjeel Mahmood, by chalking a couple of century breaks, turned out to be the star of the day, as he stormed into the quarter-finals by whipping Muhammad Ijaz. Muhammad Bilal was the only other centurion in the pre-quarters.
Second seed Shahid Aftab, fourth seed Ahsan Javaid, fifth seed Babar Masih, sixth seed Mubashir Raza and seventh seed Naseem Akhtar were eliminated by Asif Toba, Muhammad Bilal, Haris Tahir, Muhammad Sajjad and Ahsan Ramzan, respectively.
With third seed Asjad Iqbal and eighth seed Ali Haider having exited in the preliminary rounds, defending champion Muhammad Asif was the only seeded cueist to move into the quarter-finals.
Like the pre-quarter-finals, the quarter-finals will also be best-of-nine-frame encounters. All four quarters will be starting simultaneously at 10am on Sunday (today). Both the semi-finals will be contested on Monday (tomorrow) with the final scheduled for Tuesday.
In the quarter-finals, top seeded Asif will be taking on Sharjeel, Bilal will be up against Muhammad Saleem, Haris Tahir will confront Ahsan Ramzan and Asif Toba will tackle Muhammad Sajjad.
In the pre-quarters, Asif Toba stunned second seed Shahid Aftab 5-2 with the frame scores of 75-48, 61-38, 77-35, 15-81, 7-69, 76-65, 62-1.
Muhammad Bilal overpowered fourth seed Ahsan Javaid 5-3 with the scores 68-51, 59-20, 25-66, 0-70, 72-8, 63-32, 41-67, 112-0. Bilal fired breaks of 51 and 55 in the second and fifth frames, respectively, before signing off with a superb break of 112 in the eighth frame.
Haris continued his giant-killing act by outwitting fifth seed Babar 5-3 with the scores of 34-48, 44-59, 64-4, 43-54, 60-55, 55-42, 96-26, 57-37.
Muhammad Sajjad edged out sixth seed Mubashir Raza 5-4 with the frame scores of 36-75, 120-9, 27-96, 68-17, 1-62, 66-4, 5-49, 87-13, 64-2.
Ahsan Ramzan blew the whistle on seventh seed Naseem Akhtar, elbowing him out 5-4 with the scores of 81-15, 19-72, 4-68, 60-52, 61-34, 10-78, 7-107, 64-40, 62-4.
Sharjeel routed Ijaz 5-1 with the scores of 101-27, 113-24, 8-113, 73-63, 109-8, 57-29, chalking up breaks of 113 and 109 in the second and fifth frames, respectively.
Asif, two times world champion, showed his pedigree by hammering Zulfiqar Abdul Qadir 5-0 with the scores of 64-55, 78-0, 72-51, 65-15, 64-36.
Saleem overcame Bahadur Khan 5-2 with the frame scores of 72-7, 16-104, 75-42, 8-65, 58-22, 88-10, 75-8.
