Pak players on winning side in Jr British Open

LONDON—Pakistani players underlined their presence in the prestigious British Junior Open Squash Championships by winning their opening round matches in the northern English city of Sheffield.
The week-long event has attracted more than 450 players from 34 countries to this freezing and snow-swept Yorkshire city. Pakistan suffered two losses on what was otherwise a good opening day for them. The first casualty was Owais Khan in the Men’s Under-19 main draw who lost to his Malaysian counterpart Kamran Khan after a tough contest of 74 minutes in the first round. Kamran won 9-6,8-10,9-6,9-3 in a 74 minutes contest.
This was Owais’s second longest match as earlier in the preliminary round he was on the court for 73 minutes before putting out his pugnacious rival from South Africa Andrew Martin 9-10,9-7,7-9,9-2,9-2.
However, the biggest upset faced by Pakistan was in the Women Under-19 second round when Maria Toor Pakay was eliminated by her South African rival Ashleigh Ditchfield in what turned out to be an embarrassing one-sided match as Maria lost in straight games 0-9,0-9,0-9.
Second seed Farhan Zaman moved into the second round of Men’s Under-17 main round beating Juan Pablo Gaviria of Colombo 9-5,9-0,9-0. Other Pakistani players to move ahead in this category were Aurangzeb Mohmand who defeated Alain Mudeen of Cayman Island 9-7,9-2,10-8,Hamza Bokhari with his 9-2,9-6,9-6 victory over local player Philip Waller and Danish Atlas Khan who put out Arjun Gupta of Canada 9-5,9-3,5-9,9-4, and Nousherwan with his 9-1,9-1,9-1 success over Dominik Penkov of Switzerland.
In the Men’s Under-15 first round Nasir Iqbal knocked out Thomas Roden 9-0,9-0,9-0 and Haroon Rashid defeated another local player Wesley Howell 9-2,9-0,9-0. In the Women’s Under-17 first round Rushna Mehboob beat Nayera El Refee 9-1,9-0,9-1 while Anna Kardar dropped only two points in putting aside Sarah Todd of Canada 9-0,9-0,9-2.
In the Men’s Under-19 main draw first round, Muhammad Shoaib beat Chris Rusling 9-0,9-4,9-0 in just 15 minutes, Sheikh Saqib ousted another local hopeful Ky Hibberd 9-3,9-4,9-2, Muhammad Bilal earned a walk over against his Indian rival Karankanodia while Waqar Mehboob knocked out Yorkshirman Sam Wileman 9-10,9-3,9-4,9-1.
Adrian Waller, the 18-year-old British Junior champion from Enfield, led the home interest in the Men’s U-19 Championship for the Drysdale Cup defeating his fellow Englishman Philip Bull 9-6, 9-1, 9-0 in 30 minutes to earn himself a place in the last 32.—Agencies