The defending and six-times champion Ahmed Aly Elsayed has been defeated in the round of 16 of the 2022 United States National Snooker Championship at Ox Billiards in Seattle.

Aly was up against Romil Azemat who was runner-up in this Championship back in 2006, and had displayed some fine form in cruising to the top spot in Group F, so he was always going to prove to be a difficult opponent not to be taken lightly.

However when Aly took the first frame of this best-of-five frames encounter very easily, it appeared that the player from Brooklyn, who was going for his fourth successive title, had finally found his stroke after coming in second place in his group.

Azemat is a very experienced player though, who handles pressure well against good opponents and this match was clear evidence of that as he claimed the second frame on the final colors. It was from that moment on when the owner of the Arizona Billiard Academy seemed to then have the edge in this tie, and was starting to handle the intensity of the situation better.

Azemat played a tremendous frame three to nudge ahead 2-1, and in the following frame completed a very brave clearance on the colored balls to pocket the final black for a brilliant 3-1 victory.

Azemat will play Steven Wong in the quarterfinals as he knocked out the twice former champion and last year's runner up Ajeya Prabhakar, overcoming the number three seed on a black ball game in the fourth frame for a 3-1 victory.

In the other two round of 16 matches to be completed in the 1pm session start, Dharma Hemnani and John Poon booked a quarterfinal meeting with each other as the pair defeated Varun Raheja and Sridhar Shrivinasan 3-0 respectively.

For all the group match results and final placings, please visit Cloud Snooker:
» 2022 United States National Snooker on Cloud Snooker

The round of 16 draw as follows:

Round of 16 (Best-of-5 frames)
Match ID
R16-1	Jacky Wei (California)	3 - 0	Amitabh Seth (California)
R16-2	Arif Mahmood (Illinois)	3 - 2	Alfred Tinger (New York)
R16-3	Cheang Ciing Yoo (Washington) 4	3 - 1	Li Hua Chen (New York)
R16-4	Rajneesh Bansal (Illinois)	1 - 3	Raymond Fung (New York) 2
R16-5	Dharma Hemnani (New Jersey)	3 - 0	Varun Raheja (Texas)
R16-6	Sridhar Shrinivasan (Pennsylvania)	0 - 3	John Poon (California)
R16-7	Ajeya Prabhakar (California) 3	1 - 3	Steven Wong (California)
R16-8	Romil Azemat (Arizona)	3 - 1	Ahmed Aly Elsayed (New York) 1

The quaterfinal draw as follows:

Quarterfinals (Best-of-7 frames)
Match ID
QF-1	Jacky Wei (California)	vs.	Arif Mahmood (Illinois)
QF-2	Cheang Ciing Yoo (Washington) 4	vs.	Raymond Fung (New York) 2
QF-3	Dharma Hemnani (New Jersey)	vs.	John Poon (California)
QF-4	Steven Wong (California)	vs.	Romil Azemat (Arizona)

The quarterfinals will commence today Sunday at 5pm local PDT (8pm EDT), with the semifinals getting underway tomorrow Labor Day Monday at 10am (1pm EDT).

For live coverage from Ox Billiards in Seattle, click on the following links:
» Live streaming coverage courtesy of the Ox Billiards YouTube Channel
» Live scoring from Cloud Snooker