Shehab, Al Joaker cruise to KO stage of World Championship

UAE snooker stars Mohammed Shehab and Mohammed Al Joaker recorded emphatic victories in the 2012 IBSF World Snooker Championship in Sofia on Tuesday night to book themselves slots in the knockout stages of the tournament.

Al Joaker recovered from the setback suffered on Monday when he had lost to 4-3 to Duncan Bezzina of Malta to record a convincing 4-0 victory over in-form Andreas Ploner of Austria on Wednesday night.

Shehab, beaten 4-3 by Muhammad Faaris of South Africa on Sunday, returned to the table on Tuesday night to hammer Dimitar Mehandzhiyski of Bulgaria 4-0 on Tuesday night.

Shehab's dominated the match throughout as he reduced his opponent's status to that of mere spectator most of the time. He had fine breaks of 68, 58 and 53 en route to the 91-30, 83-2, 84-5 and 68-6 victory.

The top-ranked player in the UAE was to face Billy Castle of England his fourth and last Group R match on Wednesday night but looked all set to march ahead.

Al Joaker, who has also been in an impressive form, paid no heed to Ploner's current form and played like a maestro in the first two frames to drain confidence out of rival. Al Joaker won the first two frames 68-23 and 56-9.

Ploner, who continues to be in the running for the second stage from Group U, started putting up a fight but could not match the wits of the UAE cueist, who grabbed the tight third and fourth frames 63-54 and 68-61.

Al Joaker completed his first round games on Tuesday night with a fine 4-1 win-loss record in the group. He remained on top of the group standings but with some matches still to be played, there was a chance of him being overtaken by the young Bezzina.

Three players from each of the 20 groups will make it to the knockout stages of the tournament.

Meanwhile, in the City Engineering-sponsored 41st National Day Snooker Championship, which is offering a rich purse of Dh41,000 to the winner, Ahmed Hashem struggled past Mohammed Mubarak 3-2 on Tuesday night at Dubai Snooker Club to make it to the stage two of the tournament.

In the other matches of the qualifying stage one, Pakistani Shahnawaz Khan routed Abdullah Al Kaabi from Al Ain 3-0, Abu Dhabi's Rashid Al Shaikli convincingly defeated Saeed Al Mansouri 3-1 and another Abu Dhabi native Yahya Al Suwaidi edged Indian Abdul Waheed 3-2.

Stage two will commence on December 3 at the same venue to form a part of the nationwide celebrations marking the 41st UAE National Day. The final will be held on December 14.

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