ISLAMABAD Two Pakistani junior squash players, Waqar Mehboob and Shoaib Hasan, deliberately threw away their matches in the recently concluded British Junior Open Squash Championship, alleged the coach of the team Faheem Gul.

Pakistan junior squash team returned home after putting up a poor show in the recently concluded British Junior Championship held in Sheffield, England from Jan 2-6.

Seven Pakistani players participated in the four-day event in U-15, U-17 and U-19 categories.

Waqar Mehboob lost the quarter-final match against Karim Abdel Gawad from Egypt 11-2, 8-11, 11-6, 11-5 in a half-hour encounter.

Alferdo Avila from Mexico walloped Shoaib Hassan 9-11, 11-6, 11-5, 11-6 in 50-minutes.

Talking to Dawn on Wednesday Faheem said `Both the players deliberately lost their matches despite having the potential to win their fixtures.`

Waqar and Shoaib, he said, were so careless that they were not picking some sloppy shots played by their rivals during the match.

The coach however, was reluctant to support his accusations. When asked had he reported the matters to the Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) management Faheem remarked `The secretary PSF also witnessed the match and even the foreign junior players were questioning their poor game.`

`I just can`t imagine why they lost` he said. There must be, he said, some investigations to this debacle.

Both the players, he said, passed their `bleep test` level and were ranked at level-12 out of 20 which was quite good.

In a `bleep test` players have to clear multi-level fitness tests to prove their strength level for any important fixture.

`For a junior player level-12 is a good standard and players of this level can compete at any junior international tournament` he said.

When asked about the consistently peforming Egyptian players who won seven out of the eight British Junior events he alleged `Egyptians always bullied our players and our players have always failed to perform under pressure.`

Asked had he reported the `bullying` issue to the tournament referee Faheem pointed out `Yes, we did but we were not treated fairly.`

About the preparations of the event he informed that all the players were preparing for the last one month.

He asserted that the PSF must hire psychological doctors to improve the mental level of national players during any international tournament.

Faheem accepted that in the case of Danish Atlas it was a case of bad luck not bad performance.

Danish lost the final game in the U-17 category against Amr Khalid Khalifa from Egypt with a game score of 11-3, 11-4 and 14-12 in a 34-minute fixture.

Regarding Maria Toor, the only female player who participated in the U-19 category, he said `Maria was over weight.`

When contacted Waqar Mehboob said `It`s a baseless allegation leveled by the coach.`

Waqar asserted `My game score is evident and prove my point that I lost the game 3-1 this means I struggled hard in the game.`
The coach, he alleged, was not even present at the venue during his quarter-final fixture.  

Shoaib Hasan in his remarks said `Why would a player would loose a match deliberately its embarrassing to learn about the non-factual allegations.`

Waqar, he said, had already lost his quarter-final match. `I was under pressure to perform and win my fixture.`

Before the match, Shoaib said, a PSF official forced him under more pressure by saying `He (Shoaib) will also loose his match`.