KARACHI: Pakistani players got off to a good start in the Asian Confederation of Billiard Sports (ACBS) 32nd Asian Snooker Championship as Mohammad Bilal won both his matches on day one, while Mohammad Asif scored a century break in his victory in Doha, Qatar.Bilal registered a comparatively easy 4-0 win in his first match against Korea’s Baek Minhu, who could not show much resistance as he won 76-02, 104-02, 87-14 and 69-37.
In his second match, Qatar’s Abdul Rehman Abdul Mohsin gave him a much closer fight especially in two of the frames, but Bilal still managed to win 4-0 with an overall scoreline of 69-33, 75-55, 67-56 and 85-30.Former IBSF world champion Mohammad Asif showed his class in his first group match as he scored a century break in his first frame of the competition in 4-0 demolition of Palestine’s Khalid Alastal.
Asif triumphed with scores of 103-0 (103), 85-15, 90-16 and 77-19.In another match, senior player Mohammad Sajjad came back from 2-1 down to win 4-2 against Hong Kong’s Au Chi Chung.
It was Chung who won the first frame, however, Sajjad eventually leveled the match 1-1. Chung restored his slight lead by winning the third frame with just two points.However, Sajjad first drew parity and then raced to victory by winning three frames on the trot as won by scores of 16-69, 63-18, 68-70, 52-03, 83-18 and 60-30.The only casualty on day one was Sohail Shahzad, who lost 4-2 to India’s Manan Chandra, despite leading 2-1 initially by scoreline of 67-48, 27-55, 25-79, 91-05, 62-17 and 62-14.