Great hopes were pinned for the Pakistan Open, but as has been the case before, we faltered
The recently concluded 20th Pakistan Open Squash Championship ended in a blaze of glory for James Willstrop of England after he defeated Anthony Ricketts of Australia in the final to lift his first Pakistan Open trophy. In the process he became only the second Englishman to win the tournament; the first was Peter Marshall who won in 1999. Willstrop clinched the title in just about an hour, winning 6-11, 11-9, 13-11 and 11-3.
The Englishman came to limelight in 2002 when he won World Junior (Under-19) Championships in Chennai. Incidentally, that was the same competition where Pakistan recaptured the team title after a lapse of 20 years with Peshawar-born Majid Khan taking the bronze in the individual event. But at the Pakistan Open, Majid as well as the rest of the Pakistani players, yet again gave a less than promising performance at Islamabad’s Mushaf Squash Complex.
Willstrop on the other hand was the giant killer at the $65,000 competition delivering extraordinary performances on his way to the title. However, the new 11-point scoring system, under which the competition was held, did produce a number of upsets including the ouster of top seed Australian David Palmer and third seeded Egyptian Amr Shabana in the quarterfinals.
Defending champion Jonathan Power, the second seed from Canada, was ousted by Ricketts in the semifinals while Willstrop eliminated his second seeded countryman Nick Matthew in straight games to book his place in the final.
For the home players, it was the second time since 1999 that none of them managed to reach the final of the tournament. And even then, the defending champion Amjad Khan was dethroned by England’s Peter Marshall in the final.
World number 26 Mansoor Zaman, the country’s top player with rich international experience, was in the main draw along with Yasir Butt, the runner-up of this year’s World Junior Championship. Yasir was entertained on a wild card entry. Besides them five other Pakistanis were in the hunt for the title as well. They were 1998 Pakistan Open winner Amjad Khan, Shahid Zaman, Khayal Mohammad, Farhan Mahboob and Shamsul Islam Khan.
Except for Shahid Zaman, currently ranked world number 42, none of the others even managed to reach the quarterfinals. Qualifier Shahid played well but his quarterfinal defeat at the hands of England second seeded Nick Matthew was not surprising. Shahid is a seasoned player like his cousin left handed Mansoor Zaman. But both of them have been inconsistent in their performances in international tournaments, much of their poor showing coming in competitions outside the country. None of them have even been able to win even a single, low-prize ($15,000-25000) tournament outside the country in the past three years. Both are fine stroke players but lack professional commitment for strenuous training. So judging by their past performances, winning any major tournament like Pakistan Open, World Open, British Open, Hong Kong Open or any other super series event looked beyond their capabilities and potentialities. It still does.
Of course, the only other option left to the national selectors is to train and provide more international exposure to our youngsters. In the present lot of juniors, Lahore-born Yasir Butt is a highly talented youngster. His reaching the final of this year’s World Junior (Under-19) Championship in Islamabad was a great achievement. However, he lacks experience but looked very upset by a good number of questionable decisions by referee Fahim Gul in the final which was won by third seeded Egyptian Ramy Ashour.
Apart from Yasir, Majid Khan who has been in the international circuit for well over a year performed wonderfully well when he entered the semi-finals of the $25000 German Open this year. Both Yasir and Majid are trainees of the PSF National Junior Camp. The camp is being run under the tutelage of Rehmat Khan, the coach who years ago moulded his cousin Jahangir Khan into a world beater.
The Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) is providing all possible help and incentive to players to commit themselves to hard training. But it has been observed that once they are out of the national junior camp, their progress deteriorates due to undisciplined training.
The PSF has already spent a lot of money on the training of youth. It is high time that two players, any, after the end of the World Junior Championships should be trained further under Rehmat Khan’s supervision. Other players should be trained by coach Jamshed Gul, the man in charge and head of the senior camp, for at least six months.
Great hopes were pinned for the Pakistan Open, but as has been the case before, we faltered 
