ISLAMABAD: Unseeded Faraz Mohammad on Thursday caused a major upset on the opening day of the main round of the Chief of Army Staff International Squash Championship when he outplayed seventh-seeded Egypt’s Mazen Gamal here at the Mushaf Squash Complex.

Gamal, the world No.65, took a good start winning the first game 11-7 but world No. 271 Faraz succeeded in making a strong comeback in the next game by outclassing his opponent with some powerful strokes in addition to several slow tricky shots to win the game 11-6.

The seventh seed Faraz kept momentum in the third game thumping his opponent 11-6 with the fourth game seeing both players throw up fine performance to keep each other at toe.

However, Faraz romped to victory after defeating his Egyptian rival 14-12 to win the match at the COAS International Squash Championship which carries $25,000 prize money.

Earlier, Pakistan’s main hope in the tournament Farhan Zaman who is world No. 55 defeated France’s Geoffrey Demont in the five-game match.

Demont succeeded in clinching the first two games 11-9, 11-8 but his hamstring problem which he suffered in the third game gave Farhan a chance to make a resounding comeback in the rest of the match thumping his rival 11-1, 11-4, 11-5 in the third, fourth and fifth games, respectively.

On the other hand, top seed of the tournament Egypt’s Omar Abdel Meguid took a good start in the tournament outclassing his opponent Chi Him Wong of Hong Kong in straight games 11-4, 11-6, 11-9.

Also, Pakistan’s Tayyab Aslam (world No. 77) moved into the semi-final after defeating his compatriot Bilal Zakir in straight games 11-8, 11-8, 11-7 while Shahjahan Khan also remained lucky when his opponent in Egypt’s Mohamed Reda, who is third seed, was retired hurt.

Reda suffered hamstring at the end of the first game which was won by Shahjahan with the former deciding to give the match after his hamstring injury.

Farhan Mehboob ranked world No. 109 and one of Pakistan’s senior players failed to throw up any fine performance against his second seed Egyptian rival Karim Al-Fathi.

Though Farhan took a good start earning four earlier points, he failed to maintain his momentum mainly due to his fitness issues which led to several mistakes on his part and thus provided strong reasons to his opponent to win straight games 11-6, 11-4, 114.

Furthermore, Malaysian Ivan Yuen defeated his compatriot Adeen Idrakie in four games 11-5, 11-8, 8-11, 11-9, while Hong Kong’s Tsz Fung Yip defeated Pakistan’s Israr Ahmed 11-8, 9-11, 13-11, 11-8.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2016