Hasnain qualifies for IBSF World U17 Snooker Championship final

Monitoring Desk
MANAMA: Pakistan’s emerging cueist Hasnain Akhtar qualified for the IBSF World U17 Snooker Championship final with a commanding victory over Poland’s Oliwier Nizialek in the semi-final here at the Crowne Plaza Bahrain on Thursday.
The in-form cueist, who has thus far lost only one frame in his dominant campaign, took early control of the match by sealing three consecutive frames.
Nizialek, who could not score in double digits in each of the first three frames, offered some fightback in the must-win contest, but his efforts were insufficient to down Hasnain, who secured a perfect 4-0 victory with the frame scores of 76-1, 69-8, 88-0 and 62-37.
Hasnain Akhtar will face Wales’ Riley Powell in the final, scheduled to be played on Friday. Notably, the 16-year-old booked his spot in the IBSF World U17 Snooker Championship semi-final with a resounding 3-1 victory over Poland’s Krzysztof Czapnik. The quarter-final got off to a contrasting start as Czapnik took the opening frame 78-1, courtesy of a 57-point break.
It marked Hasnain’s first failure to win a frame in his IBSF World Snooker Championship campaign, and the 16-year-old thus responded valiantly, outclassing Czapnik in the next three frames to retain his dominance in the junior circuit. The frames score of Hasnain’s victory was 1-78, 92-1, 67-45, 58-16.
For the unversed, Hasnain Akhtar stormed into the IBSF World Snooker Championship quarter-final on the back of a perfect group-stage campaign as she won all of his matches without dropping a single frame. He handed an equally crushing defeat to Oman’s Mutasim Al Saadi in the pre-quarter-finals.