KARACHI, Sept 22: Saeed Hassan was stretched to the limits by Azam Khan before qualifying for the $25,000 Chief of the Naval Staff (CNS) international squash championship at the Pakistan Navy Roshan Khan Jahangir Khan complex Sunday.

Saeed was forced to stay in the court for 93 minutes by Azam before winning 14-17, 15-7, 15-12, 16-17, 15-5.

Naveed Atlas outlasted Khalid Atlas in half an hour 15-9, 15-10, 15-10 whereas Imran Mohib needed just 20 minutes to outgun Bilal Zaman 15-8, 15-10, 15-12 to also secure a place in the main round.

Punjab’s Shah Nawaz also won his third pre-qualifying match when he defeated PAF’s Farhan Mehboob 9-15, 15-7, 15-3, 15-12.

But he had to swallow the bitter pill of not making the main round after the organizers gave a wild card entry to former world champion Jansher Khan.

No criterion was announced by the organizers for excluding Shah Nawaz though he had also won the same number of matches as the other three qualifiers. The boy has all the right to feel grieved unless he was told before the match that whatever maybe the result, he would not make the main round.

The main round of the championships begins Monday with star attraction being legendary Jansher Khan who has come out of retirement to play in international circuit.

He would be playing his first competitive match since June 1999 when he was last in action in the Dutch Open and lost 3-2 to Jonathan Power in the first round. Against this background, it would be unjustified to hope that he would be at his brilliant best. Naturally, he would be rusty and might also lack the same fitness that made him unbeatable after Jahangir Khan called it a day.

Nevertheless, Jansher would be in possession of, at least, one thing which his opponents might lack — experience. He has won eight World Opens and six British Open titles in his career that has earned him 99 titles.

Egyptian Karim Darwish, the junior world champion, has been top seeded for the tournament, which also figures four other Egyptians and an Australian.