User:Montgomery15/sandbox/Ali Bassiri

Ali Bassiri
Ali Bassiri (born 7 March 1960) is an English former professional snooker player.

Career
Born in 1960, Bassiri turned professional in 1994, playing his first competitive match at the 1995 International Open, where he lost 0–5 to Kevin McCallum. He was relegated from the main tour having not won a match in 1997, and after re-qualifying that year, reached a high ranking of 296th for the 1998/1999 season but was again relegated at its conclusion.

Bassiri won his first competitive match at the 2003 World Championship, aged 43, when he defeated Elliott Clark 5–4 in his pre-qualifying match. He lost his next match 0–5 to Rene van Rijsbergen.

As a WPBSA member not on the main tour, Bassiri entered the pre-qualifying rounds for the World Championship every year until 2013. He lost 1–5 to Lewis Roberts in 2004, 2–5 to Surinder Gill in 2005, 0–5 to Stefan Mazrocis in 2006 and Philip Seaton in 2007, 1–5 to Tony Knowles in 2008, by the same scoreline to Knowles in 2009 and 1–5 to Neil Selman in 2010, before recording his second match win in 2011, 5–2 over Tony Brown. He lost his next match 0–5 to David Gray, and was defeated 5–0 by the Indian David Singh the following year.

During the 2011/2012 season, Bassiri entered two other tournaments, Event 7 of the Players Tour Championship and the 2011 World Seniors Championship. He lost his first match in the former, but overcame Dessie Sheehan 2–1 in the latter, before being eliminated 2–0 by Steve Meakin.

At the 2013 World Championship, Bassiri again faced Gill, and this time lost 0–5. He has not played a match since losing 0–4 to Mark Owens in Event 6 of the 2013/2014 European Tour.