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KARACHI, Oct 18: Pakistan’s fast rising youngster Shahid Zaman cruised into the quarterfinals of the World Squash Federation Challenge after beating Dutch player Tommy Berden in straight games, reports from Melbourne said Thursday.
Zaman is the only Pakistani left as his three other colleagues - Mansoor Zaman, Aijaz Azmat and Shamsul Islam lost in the second round. Shahid beat Berden 9-7 9-1 9-7 in under 35 minutes to set a clash with Paul Price of Australia.
Shahid’s progress would help Pakistan get good seedings for world team championship starting at the same venue from Oct 22. Seedings will be finalised after the semifinals of individual events.
Pakistan, champions in 1993 and 12th in last team championship, was at ninth spot in the provisional seedings.
Ricketts caused a major upset in the third round when he removed the top seed, Frenchman Thierry Lincou.
Number two seed Paul Price dropped the second game on the way to a 3-1 win over Egypt’s Mohammad Abbas, but Omar Elborolossy and Karim Darwish flew the flag for Egypt with excellent wins over Billy Haddrell and Renan Lavigne respectively.—SADA
FITZ-GERALD FACES JOYCE IN FINAL
Australia’s Sarah Fitz-Gerald dethroned Carol Owens in style in Thursday’s semifinals of the women’s World Open squash to stay on course to complete a glorious comeback from injury by winning the title for a fourth time, AFP adds from Melbourne.
The 32-year-old world No.1 beat Owens, the defending champion from New Zealand, 9-1, 9-1, 9-5, to set up a final clash against the top seed Leilani Joyce.
New Zealand’s Joyce, a two-time British Open Champion, maintained her bid for a first world title with a 9-3, 9-5, 10-8 triumph over England’s Linda Charman-Smith.
Owens, born in Melbourne but now living in Auckland, switched nationality last month, partly because she felt she had always been overshadowed by Fitz-Gerald.
And she certainly was in the 35-minute semifinal Thursday.
Fitz-Gerald, who has undergone two knee operations since winning her third World Open in 1998, was too quick and powerful, and her real problem was that she broke the strings in two rackets.
Charman-Smith, the No.4 seed, had her chances against Joyce.
She led in the early stages of the first two games and had three game balls at 8-6 and 8-7 in the third before losing out in a battling 53-minute encounter.
Thursday’s results (x denotes seeding):
Semifinals: Leilani Joyce (Nzl x1) bt Linda Charman-Smith (Eng x4) 9-3, 9-5, 10-8; Sarah Fitz-Gerald (Aus x3) bt Carol Owens (Nzl x2) 9-1, 9-1, 9-5.
