PESHAWAR: Top seed of the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) Israr Ahmed clinched the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa National Junior Squash Championship defeating Punjab’s Salman Hashmi in straight games 3-0 at the PAF Hashim Khan Squash Complex here on Thursday.

Israr, also the winner of the U-15 British Open who is currently practising in the national camp for Asian Junior Championship, took no time in eliminating Salman in the straight games final with the score being 11-6, 11-6 and 11-4.

“I was pretty confident before the final as I secured victory against Salman recently in Karachi besides getting first position in the national trials while Salman was selected at No. 5,” Israr said after the match.

Salman, who remained runner-up at the Qatar Open U-19 category, said that he failed to succeed against Israr.

“I had a tough semi-final against Ahsan Ayaz where we stretched to five-set battle due to which I could not give my 100 per cent,” he commented.

In the U-11 category, top seed Noor Zaman defeated Mohammad Ammad of PAF 3-1 with both players playing excellent squash.

Notwithstanding, it was the U-13 final which attracted more spectators as both the finalists Zeeshan Malik and Uzair Shoukat stretched to five-set battle. Uzair won the first two games 10-12 and 7-11 but Zeeshan came back strongly and first tied the tally by winning the third and fourth games 11-9 and 12-10 before claiming the decisive set 11-9.

Published in Dawn, May 16th, 2014