+ A
A -
Victor Bolorunduro
Doha
Austria's Albin Ouschan, the defending champion, advanced into the last-64 of the ongoing World 9-Ball Championship being held at theenspace Alenspace Arabi Sports Club in Doha after accounting for a 9-5 defeat of Hsieh Chia Chen of Chinese Taipei on Sunday.
Ouschan started the game with a loss in the first frame before bouncing back against the calm Taiwanese player.
The world number three Austrian thereafter extended his lead by taking the next two frames before Chen struck one back. It was from there a ding dong affair before Ouschan turned the games on its head from the sixth to march on to an unassailable victory.
The 27-year-old, who had recorded the same scoreline against Qatar's Abdulatif al Fawal on Saturday, will next face China's Liu Haitao in the second round of the six-day event.
Meanwhile, Qatar's Muzammil Hussain, who lost 9-3 to Jeffrey De Luna of the Philippines, will have another shot at the second round when he takes on Woo Seung Ryu of South Korea in the loser's match on Monday.
The 41-year-old Qatari, who registered a 9-7 win over South Korea's Junho Lee on Saturday, could not muster the two wins needed to automatically qualify from the group stages but may still do so if he overcomes the resistance of the Korean.
Luna, on the other hand, will next face Kwang Chan Keng of Singapore, who defeated Bader Alawadhi of Kuwait 9-7, in the last-64.
Meanwhile, Qatar's Waleed Majid bounced back to winning ways with a 9-2 defeat of Algeria's Nadim Okbani to remain in contention for the knockout stage. The Qatari had lost 1-9 to Germany's Sebastian Ludwig on Saturday. A win against China's Chu Bingjie on Monday could see him making the knockouts.
Also in good stead for the last-64 for the hosts are Mhanaa al Obaidli who defeated Malaysia's Hashim Ahusanu 9 4 and Ali al obaidli who accounted defeated Ip Tung Pong of Hong Kong by the same margin.
It was however the end of the road for Abdulatif al Fawal after enduring a 9-5 defeat in the hands of Iran's Mohammadali Pordel. Fawal, who lost his opening round match against defending champion Ouschan, is joined on the losing side by Bashar Abdulmajeed who was defeated 9-6 by Germany's Thorsten Hohmann.
Germany's Joshua Filler, the winner of the 2017 China Open, won two successive matches to qualify for the final 64.
The youngest player till date to win the Chinese tournament defeated Giallourakis Damianos of Greece 9-6 before beating China's Kong Dejing by the same margin.
The 20-year-old will next face Nikolaos Malai of Greece in the next round. Other last-64 qualifiers include Chinese Taipei's Jung Lin Chang who defeated Philippines Francisco Felecilda 9-8 and Francisco Sanchez Ruiz of Spain, who accounted for the 9-5 loss of Poland's Mieszko Fortunski.
