The inaugural edition of the Under-23 World Squash Championships kicked off on Sunday with six Pakistani players looking to wow the home crowd at Karachi\u2019s Creek Club.<\/p>\n
The newly introduced championships from April 6 to 10 feature a men\u2019s individual championship draw of 32 players and a women\u2019s individual championship draw of 22 players. The winner receives automatic qualification through to the PSA World Championships as well as the lion\u2019s share of a $60,000USD prize pot, according to World Squash.<\/p>\n
Mariam Malik was the first Pakistani player in action this morning. The 21-year-old was thrashed by Spain\u2019s Noa Romero Blazquez 11-3, 11-2, 11-4 in the opening match.<\/p>\n
Next up for Pakistan was Noor Zaman. The second seed stormed to victory against Kuwait\u2019s Hussain Alzaatari with 6-11, 11-5, 4-11, 3-11.<\/p>\n
Former world junior squash champion Hamza Khan cruised to victory in three straight sets over Romania\u2019s Radu Stefan Pena 3-11, 1-11, 5-11.<\/p>\n
Khan made history in 2023 when he won the World Junior Squash Championship 2023 on Sunday after beating Egypt\u2019s Mohamed Zakaria, becoming the country\u2019s first champion since 1986.<\/p>\n
The remaining three Pakistani players will also play their matches today, with Amna Fayyaz taking on Japan\u2019s Kurumi Takahashi, Muhammad Ammad facing Malaysia\u2019s Ameeshenraj Chandaran, and Sana Bahadar going up against Czechia\u2019s Tamara Holzbauerova.<\/p>\n
A total of 22 matches across five courts at Creek Club are set to place take today.<\/p>\n
Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) Vice President and Sindh Squash President Adnan Asad made no secret of his and his colleagues\u2019 goal to return Pakistan to the summit of the game.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy vision is to create a few Jahangir Khans in the next five years,\u201d Asad told World Squash earlier this week.<\/p>\n
He adds that hosting the championships forms part of a two pronged strategy that will see Pakistan host more high profile events in the future to give local players more opportunities to compete with the world\u2019s best talents, coupled with an increased PSF and private investment in facilities, equipment and grassroots programmes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have very high hopes,\u201d Asad admits. \u201cBy hosting this championship, I expect a large number of Pakistani players to get serious and work hard for the next few years and hopefully get Pakistan back as a world beater.<\/p>\n
While speaking to the global governing body last month, Zaman told World Squash it was a huge honour to represent Pakistan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The inaugural edition of the Under-23 World Squash Championships kicked off on Sunday with six Pakistani players looking to wow the home crowd at Karachi\u2019s Creek Club. The newly introduced championships from April 6 to 10 feature a men\u2019s individual championship draw of 32 players and a women\u2019s individual championship draw of 22 players. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7848,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7849,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7847\/revisions\/7849"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}