News / Sports

Iranian snooker team bids farewell to Little Swan World Cup

Saturday, 08 July 2017 9:39 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 08 July 2017 1:56 PM ]

The Iranian men’s national snooker team: Hossein Vafaei (L) and Soheil Vahedi

The Iranian men’s national snooker team has dropped out of the 2017 Little Swan World Cup in China after losing to the strong Thai side in the quarter-final round of the professional non-ranking team tournament.

On Saturday, Iranian cueists Hossein Vafaei and Soheil Vahedi, who had blanked the Maltese pair 5-0 in their last Group D fixture at the Wuxi City Sports Park Stadium in China’s east-central city of Wuxi the previous day, lost to their strong-minded Southeast Asian counterparts 1-4.

The 2017 Little Swan World Cup, which is the 15th edition of the event, kicked off in Wuxi, China, on July 3 and will run through July 9.

The tournament uses the same format as that used in the 2015 edition. There are 24 national teams, and the entrants were divided into four groups of six in the initial round.

During the group stage, every national team played a best-of-five frame match against each of the other sides in their pool. All matches consisted of five frames, two singles, a doubles frame, and two reverse singles. The top two teams from each group advanced to the knockout stage.

The teams that claimed the fifth, fourth and third spot in the group stage received $10,000, $15,000 and $22,500 respectively.

During the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and championship final, the eight qualifying teams are paired off in a head-to-head knockout.

The teams that advance to the quarter-final and semi-final round are awarded $40,000 and $60,000.

The winner and the runner-up of the tournament will earn $200,000 and $100,000 respectively.

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