Pakistan's Asif storms into IBSF World Snooker semis

Pakistan’s seasoned cueist and former two-time world champion Mohammad Asif on Tuesday qualified for the semi-finals of the IBSF World Snooker Championship 2024 being held in Doha.

In the quarter-final, Asif conquered Mohamed Shehab of UAE 4-1. Asif’s comeback victory was also embellished with two successive century breaks. He fired a break of 109 in the third frame and 112 in the fourth frame.

The frame score was 7-111(100), 54-5, 109(109)-0, 119(112)-1, 60-48.

Asif will play in the semi-final at 9pm on Tuesday with the winner of the second quarter-final.

Earlier, Asif downed Ahmed Saif of Qatar 4-3 in the pre-quarter-finals.

It was a crunch show with either cueist never allowing each other to dominate.

After winning two successive frames 112-0, 100-24, Asif lost focus which gave his opponent a chance to penetrate as he romped to a 97(64)-4 and 77-(77)-44 win to level the score.

Asif then won the fifth frame 68-22 to take a 3-2 lead. At this stage Ahmed Saif struck again as he lifted the sixth frame 68-1 to once again bring parity. However, Asif, bringing his huge experience into practice, secured outstanding 54-0 win in the next frame to seal a hard-earned victory.

The frames score was 112(53)-0, 100(69)-24, 4-97(64), 44-77(77), 68-22, 01-68, 54-0 in Asif’s favor.

In the last 24 round Asif had downed Ali Alobaidli of Qatar 4-1 to make it to the pre-quarter-finals. The score was 74-15, 102(102)-25, 15-67, 66-08, 72-24.

Asif returned to the event after a gap of two years when he made a fine start in the World Qualifier stage-1 by beating his teammate Asjad Iqbal 4-2 with the score of 78-32, 08-84(76), 88(53)-08, 86(52)-63), 04-78(69), 80(64)-25. This also helped the experienced campaigner to make it to the World Championship.

Meanwhile, in the main event too Asif made a fine start when he defeated Kamal Chawla of India 4-1 with the frame score of 135(100)-00, 114(66)-19, 01-56, 77(52)-41), 72(63)-16.

Asif is the most successful cueist in Pakistan’s snooker history having won the world titles twice.

He had won the world titles in 2012 and 2019 and had become the second Pakistani to achieve the milestone after Mohammad Yousuf who had lifted the coveted crown in 1994, the golden era where Pakistan was world champion in cricket, hockey, squash and snooker at the same time.