UAE’s Kamali advances

However, the other two UAE players, Badr Obaid and Omer Ahmed Hashem, crashed out of tournament after losing their respective matches.

Aloysius Yapp of Singapore handed Obaid a 4-1 defeat on Wednesday night. Obaid has one more match to play but it will be of no significance as far as his chances of making the knockout stage line-up are concerned.

Hashem was beaten Mundir Sherazi of India 4-1 on Wednesday evening and later on Thursday morning he sustained another 4-0 loss at the hands of Amir Sarkhosh of Iran. Hashem has completed his quota of three Group F first round matches, losing all.

Kamali, who earlier scored victories over Brendan Chia of Singpore and Abdulla Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia, put up a tough fight against Zhou in his last first round, round robin match. The seventh seeded Kamali conceded the first frame 66-44, but got even with his opponent by grabbing the second 66-52.

The third frame was only one in which Zhou had been able to wrest full control from Kamali as a break of 55 points led him to a 126-17 win and gave him a 2-1 lead. The unsung Chinese succeeded in capturing the fourth 63-61 on the final black. Kamali took the fifth 60-52 in almost similar fashion and his campaign ended in the next frame when Zhou cruised home 83-50 after a tough battle.

Yesterday, Kamali had been assured of a place in the last 16 stage after registering his second straight victory as he routed Abdulla Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia 4-0 with ease in his second Group G encounter.

The seventh seeded Kamali had complete control over the proceedings from the word go, as is reflected by frame scores of 81-18, 98-05, 77-20 and 73-31. Top seeded and reigning world champion Hossein Vafaei of Iran started his campaign with a big bang when scored a break of 137 points in his first frame of the tournament before hammering Marcus Lim of Singapore 4-0.

Sixth seeded Thai Akani Songsermsawad, meanwhile, regained form and brightened his chances of making it to the second stage of the championship by whitewashing Slyavosh Mozayani of Iran 4-0 with the help of a spectacular break of 128.

A total of 32 players from 10 countries are vying for the top honours at this year’s Asian youth event.