44th National Snooker Championship move into pre-quarterfinal stage

The pre quarter-finals line-up of the 44th National Snooker Championship was drawn with one exception after seven seeded cueists managed to cross first hurdle. Sixth seed Sharjeel Mehmood of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa became the notable casualty to make an unceremonious exit. 

Those who were through to the last-16 round are Babar Masih; Mohammad Naseem Akhtar (A), Asjad Iqbal; Mohammad Asif (B), Zulfiqar A. Qadir; Imran Shehzad (C), Sultan Mohammad; Mohammad Majid Ali (D), Mohammad Bilal; Ali Haider (E), Haris Tahir; Agha Bilawal.(F), Mohammad Ijaz; Shahid Aftab.(G) and Sohail Shehzad; Rambel Gul.(H).

The list includes three juniors, namely former junior world champion Mohammad Naseem Akhtar, reigning national U-21 champion Ali Haider and former Asian U-21 runner-up Haris Tahir. According to results, five cueists, who remained unbeaten in the seven-day league are Babar Masih, Zulfiqar Qadir, Mohammad Bilal, Sultan Mohammad and Sohail Shehzad. 

The last day of the league stage saw three unseeded players Ijaz, Haris and Ahsan Ramzan making waves by lowering the colours of seeded cueists. Ijaz sent seventh seed Shahid Aftab packing straight 128-0, 83-34, 58-35, 72-29. The triumph envisaged a blistering break of 128 in the opening frame. 

Haris shocked sixth seed Sharjeel 4-1 (84-13, 59-61, 64-9, 53-48, 63-27) while Ahsan Ramzan coasted to 4-2 victory over fourth seed Majid 4-2 in all-Punjab encounter the scores being 89-21, 77-21, 5-67, 60-72, 71-66, 52-30.

Besides Ijaz, three other players Muhammad Ahsan Javaid (114), Zulfiqar A Qadir (106) and Mohammad Asif (109) hogged limelight by hammering century breaks . The best of nine pre quarter-finals will be played in two sessions today(Wednesday).