Pakistan’s Hamza Ilyas won two consecutive matches in the World Under-21 Snooker Championship on Wednesday in Saudia Arabia.
Hamza beat India’s 12-year-old Aravuu Sancheti 1-3 in the second group match. Despite losing the first set on tie ball, the 17-year-old made a comeback and won three successive sets.
In the last frame, Hamza also played a break of 50.
In the first game, Hamza defeated Iraq's Umar al-Fahdal. He has now reached the next round following back-to-back victories at the Championship.
Hamza will play his last match tomorrow against Germany's Fabian Heikken.
On the other side, Pakistan's Ahsan Ramzan will play all three group matches tomorrow.
It must be noted that Ramzan won the Asian Under-21 Snooker Championship in Iran by defeating Iran's Malad Pourali by five-two in the final in June.
The young Pakistani cueist looked favourite from the start as he took the lead of 4-0 by winning the first four frames convincingly.
Despite a very strong comeback by the Irani as he won the fifth and sixth frames, Ramzan did not lose his grip on the game and finished the game by winning the seventh frame and claiming the title.
He won the match with frame scores of 48-46, 70-5, 61-6, 62-29, 30-71, 55-67, 101-27.
It is appropriate to mention that the young snooker sensation Ahsan impressed the world with his precision in the IBSF Snooker World Championship 2022 as he orchestrated an astounding comeback in the final against Iran’s Amir Sarkhosh from 4-2 down to eventually triumphing 6-5 and became the second-youngest cueist to seize the prestigious title.
Furthermore, Ahsan is only the third snooker player from Pakistan to win the international amateur world title after Muhammad Yousaf, who achieved the feat in 1994.
It must be noted that Ahsan has already won the national U17, U18 and U19 titles, while he ended up as runner-up in the U21 championship.
Faizan Lakhani Faizan Lakhani is Deputy Editor (Sports) at Geo News.