LAHORE, Dec 16: All seeded men and women players had easy sailing to the individual finals of the ninth Ameer Abdullah Khan Rokri Badminton ranking tournament on Saturday.
Top seed and national champion Wajid Ali, exerted a little extra effort to brush aside Waqas Ahmad 21-16, 21-14. Wajid led from very the outset, as Waqas stranded all the time to catch up a strong rival. The match lasted only 30 minutes.
Second seed Umar Zeeshan carved out an easy win outplaying Atiq Ahmad 21-14, 21-9, to set the final with Wajid.
Umar spent only 35 minutes on the court to earn victory.
In the women’s category, national champion Asma Butt had a cakewalk against Farzana Ali as she recorded a 21-18, 21-10 win. Asma will meet Ayesha Akram in the final. Ayesha, however, had some tense moments to qualify for the final, beating Sara Khan 21-19, 23-21 in the second semi-final.
After losing the first game by a narrow margin, Sara showed a marked improvement in the second matching Ayesha point-by-point till 21-all. But Ayesha eventually grabbed two winners to book a place in the final.
Umar Zeeshan and Zafar Tasnim struggled to overcome the challenge from Waqas and Hashir Bashir to enter the men's doubles semi-final, winning 21-13, 21-19, 21-18. The pair of Tahir Ishaq-Rizwan Rana also earned a victory beating Aamir Islam-Imran Mohib 21-15, 21-17.
Duo Wajid and Ahsan Qamar were also in last four, defeating the pair of Shabbar-Ijaz 21-13, 21-18 while Atiq-Rizwan Azam came out as victor against Asad-Tariq 21-16, 22-20 to enter the semi-final.
Palwashah and Saima laboured for more than one hour to eliminate the challenge of Ayesha-Sara Khan to march into the final of women's doubles. Palwashah and Saima won with the score 23-25, 21-18, 21-15.
In the second semi-final, the sister’s pair, Asma Butt and Uzma notched up 21-18, 21-9 win against Sara and Farzana.
In the mixed doubles, Waqas-Saima beat Qasim Khan-Anum Bilal 21-17, 25-23 to enter semi-final. Rizwan with Palwashah were the winners against Nabeel-Ayesha in one of the tough match 11-21, 21-12, 21-13. Sara Mehmmand-Tahir Ishaq beat Sara Khan-Hashar 21-16, 21-13 while Rizwan Rana-Asma Butt outclassed Atiq-Farzana 21-18, 21-15 in the fourth quarter-final.