KARACHI: Pakistan’s Mohammad Majid Ali stormed into the knockout phase of the IBSF World Under-21 Snooker Championship 2012, by winning his penultimate league match in Wuxi, China, on Wednesday.
The fate of the other Pakistani cueist, Hunain Aamir, however, was hanging in balance with his third defeat in a row after he had won the first couple of matches. He needs to win his league fixture on Thursday (today) to force his way into the last 32.
Majid continued his excellent form to overpower Lalrina Rentheli of India 4-2 with the frame scores of 133-5, 108-53, 29-62, 65-49, 39-83, 68-65. He fired a break of 86 in the opening frame and also blanked his rival in the second frame. He lost the keenly contested third frame but made it 3-1 by pocketing the fourth frame.
Rentheli pulled it back by taking the fifth frame at which point the momentum seemed to have tilted towards him. But Majid displayed great maturity to seal the match in the sixth frame that went to the wire.
Alireza Khodaparast of Iran spoiled the party for Pakistan’s reigning national junior champion, Hunain, defeating him 4-1 with the scores of 41-59, 57-44, 66-8, 72-16, 66-40.
It was for the third day running when Majid, who ended runner-up the Jubilee Insurance National Junior Championship 2012 in Lahore in February, recorded a win over his rival and Hunain suffered a defeat.
Majid, drawn in Group C, has won four of his five league matches. He had earlier blown the whistle on Alaeddin Wali of Libya Mitchell Mann of England and Alvyn Depoorter of Belgium with his solitary defeat coming at the hands of Zhu Yinghuiv of China. In his last match he will be pitted against Alexander Gauss of Austria.
Hunain, placed in Group G, has struggled after routing his rivals in straight frames in the first couple of matches.
He had recorded emphatic wins over Omer Ahmad Hashem of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Belan Sharif of Sweden but he found himself at the receiving end against Lu Ning of China and Jurian Heusdens of Belgium before losing to Alireza.
