ANISUDDIN KHAN
KARACHI - Top seed Vafaei of Iran, second seed Unnooh of Thailand each recorded century breaks while registering second successive wins in their group league match but India’s Yasin Merchant seed three had to fight hard for carving out his second win in the on thee third day of the Jubilee Insurance Seven-nation Snooker Championship here on Tuesday.
Favorite Hossein Vafaei Ayouri raced through to straight frames win over Naveen Perwani of Pakistan for his second straight win and in the process recorded a break of 107 in fourth frame as score in his favouir was 73-59, 69-24, 96-0, 107(103)-37.
The form and confidence that the youngster from Iran exhibited showed that his challengers would find it hard to upset the current world champion in league and knock out rounds.
Second seed Thepchaiya Unnooh of Thailand found little resistance from his Pakistani opponent M Sajjad to win by four frames by one. He showed extraordinary potting in the fifth frame when he logged break of 129 while winning (78(78)-31, 72(50)-19, 92(51)-26, 15-66 and 131(129)-12).
Yasin Merchant of India, however, had to fight really hard against Sultan Muhammad of Pakistan for his second victory by four frames to three. It was his experience and his ability to handle the pressure in tight situation helped Yasin to overpower his Pakistani opponent.
When the contest reached decisive seventh frame, the scores was three frames all after Sultan had won the sixth frame recording a break of 103 to stun his opponent.  Any other player would have wilted under the pressure but Yasin rose to the occasion took the challenge from the horns and won the decisive 7th frame 74-30 to retain unbeaten. Sharjeel Mehmood of Pakistan was lucky to win against Hussain Mahmod of Bahrain who informed the officials of his intention to retire as he was not feeling well.
He had already lost the first frame 63-42 and the second at 70-17 when he left the table.