Wednesday, November 05, 2008
By Syed Khalid Mahmood
KARACHI: Both the Pakistan cueists, Saleh Mohammad and Khurram Hussain Agha, started their campaign on a winning note in the knockout stage of the IBSF World Snooker Championship 2008 being played at Wels, Austria.
In the round of last 64, Saleh edged out Kevin Van Hove of Belgium 4-3 while Khurram overpowered Jyari Virtanem of Finland 4-2.
In the round of last 32, Saleh will be pitted against the dangerous Colin Gilcreest of Ireland who was given a bye in the previous round. The Irish had topped the Group B, having notched up breaks of 142, 96, 91, 89, 88, 87, 70, 70, 65, 59, 54, 53 and 52 while winning all his league matches.
Khurram’s opponent in the last 32 would be Au Chi Wai of Hong Kong, who had topped the Group K at the end of the league matches.
Khurram extended his brilliant run by hammering local boy Richard Komberger in straight frames in his last league encounter late Monday evening. It was his sixth victory in seven games with the solitary defeat coming at the hands of former world champion Steve Mifsud of Australia, who emerged the Group N champion despite having equal number of points as the Pakistan youngster.
Pakistan’s premier cueist, Saleh, finished fourth in the Group E behind Ben Hencorn of England, Mohammad Al Joakar of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Chih-Hua Huang of Chinese Taipei.
|
ISSN 1563-9479 
