Hossein Vafaei Ayouri from Iran became the first Iranian player who booked a place in the Northern Ireland Open quarter-final.

The snooker world number 75 Vafaei lost to Mark King from England 5-3 Friday night and failed to advance to the competition’s semi-final.

Vafaei started the campaign with a 4-3 victory over England’s Rod Lawler in the last 128 round.

The Iranian defeated Zak Surety from England 4-2 in the last 64 and beat Englishman Sanderson Lam 4-1 in the last 32.

He also defeated Scotland’s Scott Donaldson 4-2 in the last 16.

The quarter-final results read as follows:

1 [Iran] Hossein Vafaei Ayouri [75] 3 - 5 [England] Mark King [31]
2 [England] Kyren Wilson [12] 5 - 4 [Wales] Mark Williams [13]     
3 [England] Barry Hawkins [11] 5 - 2 [Wales] Michael White [20] 
4 [N.Ireland] Mark Allen [7] 2 - 5 [England] Anthony Hamilton [70]