KARACHI, Dec 24: Pakistan’s Aamir Atlas Khan is seeded second in the U-19 event of 2006 British Junior Open squash championships to be held in Sheffield, England, next month.

The last year World Junior Championship finalist, Aamir is seeded to meet top seed Ramay Ashour of Egypt in the final while his cousin, Asian junior champion Farhan Mehboob is seeded fourth.

Both the players, who are nephews of former world number one Jansher Khan are favourites to win the title.

The British Junior Open squash Championships is regarded as the most prestigious junior event in the world, boasting U19, U17, U15 and U13 events for men and women with roots back in the early 1920s.

The 2006 championships will take place at Hallamshire and Abbeydale Squash Clubs in Sheffield, Yorkshire, from Jan 2-6. The 2006 event has attracted a record entry of 543 players from 31 countries, from as far afield as Australia, Peru and Jordan.

Egypt and Pakistan will be looking to continue their dominance of the event and add to the four and three titles, respectively, that they claimed in January.

The boys U-17 event’s seeding shows Pakistan’s Muhammad Hassan and Waqar Mehboob lying on third and fourth spots while another Pakistani Shehzad Khan is seeded seventh.

Nasir Iqbal and Hamza Bukhari of Pakistan are seeded second and fourth in the U-13 event.—PPI