Sunday, September 19, 2021
By
Faizan Lakhani

Pakistani cueist Babar Masih wins 2 more IBSF 6-Red World Cup matches

By
Faizan Lakhani
|
Babar Masih. Photo: Screengrab via Geo News
Babar Masih. Photo: Screengrab via Geo News
  • Two wins confirm Masih's place in the knock-out stage of the tournament
  • Masih's teammate Haris Tahir also achieves second consecutive win in the tournament.
  • Babar makes a tremendous fightback against Turkey’s cueist in the morning session after losing the first frame.


DOHA: Continuing his winning run, Pakistan’s Babar Masih has won two more matches in IBSF 6-Red World Cup in Doha to finish on top of his group D and confirm his place in the knock-out stage of the tournament.

His teammate Haris Tahir has also achieved the second consecutive win in the tournament being played in Doha.

On Saturday, Babar played two group matches and emerged victoriously in both the games by defeating Turkey’s Enes Bakirci and Qatar’s Mohammad Al-Binali.

Babar made a tremendous fightback against Turkey’s cueist in the morning session after losing the first frame. He then played breaks of 58, 41, and 47 to win the next three frames and took a 3-1 lead.

In the third frame, Bakirci couldn’t even pot a single red as Babar cleared the frame in the single break of 41. In the fourth frame, the Turkish player got 18 points before the Pakistani cueist chalked out another clearance break of 47.

Bakirci fought back in the 5th frame to decrease his deficit from 3-1 to 3-2. In the 6th frame, Masih chalked out a break of 69, taking three black and three blue following each red ball before clearing the frame by taking all colours.

Both the players played safe and tried to place snooker balls on each other. However, Babar – once again – emerged victoriously.

Masih’s score against Bakrici was 12-45, 70-12, 41-0, 47-18, 26-49, 69-0, and 42-40.

In the second match, Babar Masih outclassed Qatar’s Mohammad Al-Binali 5-1. The Pakistani cueist took an early lead of 4-0 by winning the first four frames playing breaks of 36 in the first and 44th in the 4th frame before the Qatari player made a comeback to make it 4-1 — still in Babar’s favour.

Al-Binali could’ve done it 4-2 but he missed an easy black-ball after pocketing the last colour, allowing Babar to stage a comeback in the frame and complete a 5-1 win.

The Pakistani cueist won the second match with scores of 36-32, 54-14, 57-0, 72-0, 16-53, and 28-18.

Haris Tahir, who’s placed in group H, defeated Lebanon’s Firas Abboud 5-0 to register his second consecutive win in the 6-Red World Cup.

The 21-year-old cueist remained in control of the game throughout and didn’t allow his opponent to flex his muscle by winning it 63-01, 58-19, 74-05, 54-06, and 33-09.

Haris will play his last group match on Sunday against Palestines’ Khaled Alastal.