DOHA: Pakistan’s cueists suffered a disappointing day at the ACBS Asian Men Snooker Championship in Doha, with Mohammad Asif and Shahid Aftab crashing out in the quarter-finals on Wednesday.

Asif’s tournament came to an end after a nail-biting 4-3 [(60-0, 17-101(100), 93-17, 0-75(54), 64-45, 17-103(63), 97(97)-29)] loss to Iran’s Amir Sarkosh. The match was a seesaw battle, with Asif initially losing the first frame before responding strongly with a century break.

The two cueists traded frames, with the match tied at 3-3. Sarkosh, who had earlier eliminated Pakistan’s Mohammad Sajjad, held his nerve to win the deciding frame and advance to the semi-finals.

Shahid Aftab, Pakistan’s last hope in the men’s event, also suffered a similar fate, losing 4-3 to Qatar’s Alialobaidli [60(52)-24, 68-22, 33-77(60), 21-93, 9-69, 72-6, 62-2].

Aftab, the national champion, lost the first two frames before staging a remarkable comeback, winning three frames on the trot to take a surprise lead.

However, Alialobaidli turned the tables, convincingly winning the next two frames to advance to end Pakistan’s journey in the men’s event.

It was an underwhelming day for Pakistan in the U-21 category too. Hamza Ilyas lost a hard-fought match 3-2 to Iran’s Tirdad Azadpour, while Hasnain Akhtar suffered a 3-0 defeat to India’s Dhruv Patel. However, Hasnain bounced back to beat UAE’s Saif Al Zabi 3-1.

Ahsan Ramzan, though, had a comfortable outing defeating Iran’s Ali Lalehganidezaki 3-1.

With the group matches concluded, all three Pakistani cueists — Ramzan, Ilyas, and Akhtar — advanced to the last-14 knockout round.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2025