Mohammed Shehab and Mohammed Al Joaker both suffered shock defeats at the seven-nation Snooker Championship in Karachi on Monday.
The Emirati duo lost to relatively less known players, with Shehab losing 4-3 to Abdul Sattar, an unseeded Pakistani cueist, before the fourth seed recovered to defeat Saeed Abooyesani, the Iranian, and keep alive his chances for a place in the quarter-finals.
Seventh seed Al Joaker, however, lost both matches he played – to Sultan Mohammad, of Pakistan, and Egypt's Mohamed Ibrahim Mohamed.
The day belonged to local hope, Sattar, who followed his opening-day win over Egypt's Yaser Ahmed Elsherbiny with the win over Shehab.
After conceding the close first frame, Shehab came back with a run of 50 points to win the second. The UAE's top-ranked player went without a point in the next frame before recovering once again to clinch the fourth frame and a break of 83 points in the fifth.
But Sattar produced a vital break of 69 in the sixth frame to earn a 3-3 and then took the deciding seventh on the black for a 4-3 victory.
It was Pakistan's day with Mohammad Asif beating Yaser Ahmed Elsherbiny, of Egypt, in straight frames and notching up a break of 126 in the final frame, which remains the highest of the championship being contested by 20 cueists from seven countries.
Sixth-seeded Habib Subah, of Bahrain, was also among those upset on Monday as he lost 4-2 to little-known Mohammad Faisal Khan, of India.
The top three seeded cueists in the championship – Hossein Vafaei Ayouri (Iran), Thepchaiya Unnooh (Thailand) and Yasin Merchant (India) – won their matches to boost their chances of advancing to the next round.