Ahmad Taufiq Murni stumbled in his Group 3 opener of the Qatar World 9-Ball Pool Championship in Doha yesterday.
The national cueist fell to a 9-5 defeat at the hands of Fu Che Wei of Chinese Taipei at the Al Sadd Sports Club. The Bruneian will require a victory over Melkonyan Bakben of Romania in the losers bracket today to keep his hopes alive on making it into the top-64 of the June 16-27 competition.
Bakben had fallen 9-5 to Abdul Rahman Al Ammar of Saudi Arabia in his opener. Taufiq last competed at the same World Pool-Billiard Association (WPA) event back in 2011 where he played into the top-64.
The national cueist started out with a 9-7 loss to then World No 4 Kuo Po Cheng in the first game. He bounced back with a 9-5 victory over Qatar's Meshal Turkey before dispatching Portugal's Manuel Gama 9-3 to advance to the second round.
He then saw his campaign come to an end after falling 11-9 to the Philippines' Alan Cuartero. The last WPA event that the 25-year-old competed in was the World 9-Ball Open 2014 in Shanghai earlier this month.
He fell 9-7 to Mohammad Hassana Al Hosaini of United Arab Emirates (UAE) in his opener before losing 9-3 to japan's Hayato Hijikatya to see him drop out of the tournament.
