Dubai: The Shaikh Rashid UAE Open Tournament had a good result in store for the UAE's number one snooker enthusiast Abdullah Marzooqi from Abu Dhabi.
In a tough draw against fellow snooker devotee Khalid Salim, Marzooqi quickly fell 1-2 behind after winning the first frame.
But he knuckled down to his renowned safety play to grind down the resistance of his out of practice opponent.
Marzooqi promptly levelled the match by winning frame four by 40 points. The Abu Dhabi player went ten better in the last in recording a fifty point winning margin.
This puts him into round four against number five seed Marwan Al Hajji.
In another match, Obaid Sharif, one of the UAE's top refereeing exponents forced and converted a deciding frame win against former UAE team member Rashid Shakaily from Abu Dhabi.
The match was level at two frames each. But in the deciding frame with just the colours remaining on the table, a snooker was laid by Sharif.
Illustrating the inherent weakness of the controversial miss rule, the referee in charge proceeded to keep replacing the cue ball in the snookered position when contact was not made with the required object ball.
This was blindly repeated until Shakaily could no longer win the frame because he was so far behind.
Results:
Arif Ullah bt Mubarak Suwaidi 3-1; Obaid Sharif bt Rashid Shakaily 3-2; Abdullah Marzooqi bt Khalid Salim 3-2.
