The Emirati pair of Mohammad Shehab and Mohammad Al Joker proved to be no match for India’s Pankaj Advani and Aditya Mehta, losing the contest 3-0. In the singles, Mehta tamed Shehab 88-15 and Advani defeated Al Joker 67-19. The doubles too was a one-sided affair with Advani-Mehta pair beating Shehab and Joker 52-21.
“Tough luck actually, I would say. We had a bad draw as we didn’t want to face the Indian team first up in the knockouts,” said the UAE’s No. 1 cueist Shehab.
“It didn’t go well for me or my partner Joker. From the first shot till the last, everything favoured our opponents. We needed a bit of luck and it is not that they were superior. Today they had better run of balls and it was a bad run for us,” added Shehab, who was of the view that the team needs to start from scratch.
“We have to get back to the drawing board immediately and hope for better luck in the coming tournaments. We now have a ranking tournament coming up in Egypt for qualifying in the World Championship,” said Shehab, who felt that the lack of players coming up the ranks was hurting the sport in the UAE.
“Here, it’s been all about me and Joker and that has to change. We are looking towards our players to improve. I would say our players are a bit lazy. With the UAE players, even if you put a snooker table in their house they would find some excuses while other teams from the world are constantly improving,” felt Shehab, who was hoping that it will change once the federation manages to establish their own club in Dubai soon.
“We are establishing our federation club. The excuses that players in Dubai give is they don’t have a place to train but now we will be opening a club this Ramadan. I think that will give a boost. Here in Abu Dhabi, we have the Police Club were you can train. But there are more players in Dubai on whom we have to focus,” asserted Shehab, who revealed that the agenda of the federation is to concentrate on the upcoming tournaments but for that, they needed players who would take the game seriously.
Shehab was also of the view that taking the sport to the schools will be of great help. “I wish it should be taken to the schools. I think we should hand over small table to the schools. Just to see how the children react to the sport. The idea has been there for four to five years but the UAE federation doesn’t have their own facilities so they were holding back that project. Hopefully, with the establishment of the club in Dubai things will work,” said Shehab.
Meanwhile, later in the day, India won their semi-final contest against arch-rivals Pakistan 3-0 to set up a title clash with Iran, who completed a 3-0 rout of Malaysia.
In the first frame, Pakistan’s Mohammed Asif lost to Aditya Mehta 16-73 while Asjad Iqbal went down to Advani 25-83 in the second before losing the doubles 8-92. “I am really happy as both of us contributed equally. It started off with Aditya’s frame that helped me to play my natural game,” said an elated Advani, adding that, the plan was to be on the ‘offensive.’
“Fortunately we got the best chances to finish the game. Considering this result came in a team event, this is a fantastic result,” added Advani whose opponents in the finals are Iran’s Amir Sarkhosh and Soheil Vahedi.
Source:: Gulf News | Sports
Lack of players hurting the UAE, Mohammad Shehab says
#Dubai #MyDubai #DXBplanet #LoveDubai #UAE #دبي
No comments:
Post a Comment