LONDON, Jan 5: Two promising Pakistani youngsters Danish Atlas Khan and Nausherwan Ali advanced into the semi-finals of the Boys Under-17 British Junior Open Squash Championships in the northern English city of Sheffield with hard fought victories over their respective opponents late on Friday evening.

Danish dropped the opening game of his quarter-final match to his German rival Rudi Rohrmuller before posting a 2-9, 9-6, 9-1, 9-5 win in a clash that kept the two contestants on the court for 65 minutes.

Fellow countryman Nausherwan took 12 minutes longer to subdue an equally pugnacious Adel Zarka of Egypt who went the full distance before bowing out 6-9, 9-2, 6-9, 9-2, 9-4 in a match marked by long rallies and some gritty performance by the two players.

Their rivals in the semi-finals will be two Egyptians Amr Khalid and Karim Abdel Gawad. Gawad knocked out India’s Aditya Jagtap but not before he was taken to 83 minutes full five games. The Indian had earlier caused a major upset by eliminating second seed Farhan Zaman in the third round, having come back from two games down to topple the Peshawar player 1-9, 0-9, 9-5, 9-7, 9-4.

The other Pakistanis who lost in the third round were Aurangzeb Mohmand who was beaten by Amr Khalid Khalifa and Hamza Bokhari falling to Rudi Rohrmuller in four games. But Danish Atlas won his third round contest against Nelson Chau of Hong Kong 10-9, 9-0, 9-5 and Nausherwan ousted Andrew Schnell of Canada 1-9, 9-5, 9-5, 9-5.

Nasir Iqbal and Haroon Rashid moved into the Boys Under-15 quarter-finals with comparative ease. In their third round matches, Nasir disposed of Marwan El Shourbagy of Egypt 10-8, 9-1, 9-4 while Haroon got better of Declan James 4-9, 9-3, 9-2, 9-1.

In the Boy’s Under-19 quarter-finals Mohammad Shoaib Hassan lost 9-3, 9-2, 3-9, 9-2 to Henrik Mustonen while the Malaysian born Kamran Khan fell to Harinder Pal Sandhu of India, the winner of the recent Scottish Under-19 title.

—Agencies