Sports

Sri Lanka's number one Susantha Boteju kept the home flag flying when he recorded his second succesive win of the 22nd Asian Snooker Championship in progress now at the Pegasus Reef Hotel in Hendala, Wattala.

He achieved the victory in the second session of play which got underway at 100 p.m. with a win over Amir Sharkosh of Iran who he defeted by four frames to two following his four nil victory over Takao Kurimoto of Japan on day one. In the encounter yesterday Boteju took an early two frame lead with scores 63/56 and 72/15. Boteju will be playing his third match today at 1.00 p.m. against Habib Subah of Bahrain.

But his opponent came back to take the third and fourth frame which made Boteju to take Sharkosh seriously which he did and wrapped up the game by winning the next two frames b y 67/40 and 60/37. Boteju speaking after the game said I am playing with full confidence but I am not happy with my performance and I am looking forward to be more agressive and be at my best and my aim is to enter the final.

The other two Sri Lanka's Prasanna Pushpakumara and M. Irfan Nagaria succumbed to their second defeat when they were beaten by two players from UAE Mohamed M. Shehab and Mohamed Al- Joaker by the identical margin of four nil which was played in the first session, giving the duo their second win of the championship. Naresh Samarawickrama was the third Sri Lankan to be beaten when he lost to Ahmed Saif of Qatar 4-0.

Meanwhile Malaysia's Keen Hoon Moh had the honour of recording the highest break of the championship when he recorded a break of 134 in the first frame of his match and followed it up with another break of 84 against Pham Thanh Thuy of Vietnam whom he went on to defeat 4-0 to gain his second victory in style. The best break of 107 earlier was made by Issara Kachaiwong of Thailand.

Defending champion and number one seed Jin Long of China and second seeded Pankaj Advani of India cruised through to their second win with comfortable wins over Mubarak Al Awais of Kuwait and Orchirbold Bezsuren of Mongolia by four frames to nil.

Singapore's Boon Aun Keith, Habib Subah of Bahrain and Yuan Li of China cruised through to their second success with wins over Nizar Abdullah Asere of Saudi Arabia, Takao Kurimoto of Japan and Atthasit Mahitti of Thailand. The encounter between Yuan Li and Attasit Mahitti turned out to be a thriller with the latter who is seed number three having to take the back seat after being three each in the seven frame encounter.

Imran Shahzad and Khurram Hussain Agha too were in top form with the duo securing their second wins by getting the better of Chan Hon Kwan of Chinese Hong Kong and Tee Hoon Jung of Korea while Kaisheng Cao of China opened his campaign with an easy victory over Negdu Mehdi Rasekhi of Iran.

The 22nd Asian Snooker Championship conducted by the Billiards and Snooker Association of Sri Lanka and sponsored by Finance & Group will be continued today with the third days play of the championship due to get underway today with the first session due to begin at 0.00 a.m. and will end with the last session scheduled at 7.00 p.m.