The IBSF World under-21 Snooker Championship in Bahrain saw players from both sides of the Irish border dole out lessons in solid snooker to the UAE's lesser experienced contingent.

Ali Bufarroosha went down 4-0 to Northern Ireland's Raymond Fry while Abu Dhabi-based Saif Al Muhairi was beaten by a similar margin by David Hogan of the Republic of Ireland.

In the first frame, with a break of 47, Bufarroosha got a bad contact on the black which sent the ball off line.

The resulting miss let Fry in to clear the table, winning by only 10 points and sending a shock through Bufarroosha's system.

Still looking strong in the second, Bufarroosha could not convert the limited number of opportunities into enough points for a win, eventually going down 53-33.

By this time, the Northern Ireland player had broken his opponent's resolve and with his shoulders drooping, Bufarroosha cruised to a 4-0 loss in notching up only 20 points in the last two frames.

Then in the second match, Hogan, cueing solidly in the first frame, took it without much ado, and found Al Muhairi battling hard for the next two frames.

With the second frame going to Hogan on the colours, he was still under pressure in the third when approaching the final balls.

The difference between 2-1 and 3-0, though, was one crucial positional shot from Al Muhairi. Not landing quite as he wished on the final brown, Al Muhairi did not get another chance and found himself 3-0 adrift.

Hogan then pumped in a quickfire 47 in the last frame to assert his full authority on the match, also teaching his hardworking opponent a thing or two about matchplay and mental toughness.

The highest break of the tournament so far is the magnificent 138 clearance made on day three by Chinese prodigy Liang Wenbo.

This beautiful total clearance from the left hander against China Hong Kong's Yip Ting Hon rounded off a splendid 4-0 win, and sets him up as an early tournament favourite.

Givenchy have sponsored the UAE Junior Snooker Programme for two years.

The IBSF World under-21 event has 64 players, with 8 groups of 8 players competing in a round-robin format that will yield the last 32 players for the knock out stages of the competition.

The IBSF seniors event for players over 40 years of age has 32 players with four groups of eight playing down to the last 16.

Every player plays one best-of-seven match per day for seven days until the group stages are concluded.

For more info and results, go to www.ibsf.org.

Results
Ali Bufarroosha (UAE) lost to Raymond Fry (Northern Ireland) 4-0.

Bufarroosha still to play Kavin Hanssens of Belgium, Hussain Fouad of Bahrain, Ryan Somartne of Sri Lanka, Andre Gogola of Hungary and Hasan Samir of Egypt.

Group E: Saif Al Muhairi lost to David Hogan (Republic of Ireland) 4-0.

Al Muhairi still to play Nittiwat Kanjasari of Thailand, Ahmad Guloum of Bahrain, Lim Yuan Hao of Singapore, Li Hang of China and Shehan Somartne of Sri Lanka.

The difference between 2-1 and 3-0, though, was one crucial positional shot from Al Muhairi. Not landing quite as he wished on the final brown, Al Muhairi did not get another chance and found himself 3-0 adrift.