Asia dominates with 15 players in the Last-16 stage
- Written by Vivek Pathak - Media Officer, IBSF
Saleh Mohammed - AFG; Muhammad Naseem Akhtar - PAK
IBSF Media
It is very rare to see such kind of line up where 15 players from a region enters into the Last 16 stage of any world championship. Today the 2017 IBSF World 6Reds Men Snooker championship is filled-up with 15 players from Asia.
Out of these 15 players, five each from Pakistan and Hong Kong, two from India and one each from Afghanistan, Iran and Malaysia. The lone European player is Darren Morgan from Wales, who is defending his title in this competition. He defeated Mohamed Ismail of Egypt 4-1 to take on Saleh Mohammed of Afghanistan in the pre-quarter finals.
Saleh Mohammed reached the pre-quarter finals ousting another Welsh player and the current World No.2, Andrew Pagett.
There was a great comeback by Saleh in this match. At one point, he was down 1-3 in best of 7 frames format, but taken over the entire match to turn it to his side and won it to confirm his berth for pre-quarter finals.
The young Pakistani boy Mohammad Naseem Akhtar, who had recently won the World Under-18 championship in Beijing, gave a tough fight to Ireland’s one of the top-line cueist, Rodney Goggins and ousted him 4-2 to confirm his berth for the Last-16 stage.
Naseem started with a break of 45 points to pocket the first frame but Rodney responded with equally with a break of 40 to come at par. The sea-saw battle reached to the fifth frame with alternate wins, but towards the end, Naseem clinched the sixth frame by only one point to enter Last-16.