Aqeel cruises past Salman

Published January 19, 2007

KARACHI, Jan 18: Top seed and favourite Aqeel Khan taught a lesson to qualifier Salman Ahmed by handing a crushing 6-0, 6-0 defeat to cruise in the next round of Pakistan Open tennis championship at CDGK Sports Complex on Thursday.

Three Hyderabad players – Shabbir Gul, Abdul Majeed in men’s category and Asif Bachani in juniors – were also through to the next stage by registering straight victories.

Nomi Qamar, the fourth seed, moved ahead by virtue of a walkover against Adnan Khan.

Seher Khawaja, a former national hard court champion, downed Zoya Khan 6-1, 6-0 in the only women’s singles match. Top seed Sara Mansoor and second seed Nida Wasim who got a bye makes their appearance on Friday.

The one-sided results are true indicator of players lack lusture performance in a national ranking event.

Results:

Men’s singles:

Aqeel Khan bt Salman Ahmed 6-0, 6-0; Nomi Qamar w/o Adnan Khan; Shabbir Gul (Hyd) bt Steve Jonathan 6-0, 6-0; Tanveer Ashiq bt S. Zuhair Raza 6-2, 6-0; Shehzad Khan bt Fahim 6-0, 6-0; Abdul Majeed (Hyd) bt S. Abbas Raza 7-5, 6-1; Vinod Das bt Faisal Mahmood 6-0, 6-0.

Ladies Singles:

Seher Khawaja bt Zoya Khan 6-1, 6-0.

Boys U-15 singles:

Hashim Khan bt Adil Kohari 6-3, 7-5; Omer Shahid bt Noman 6-0, 6-0.

Juniors U-17 singles:

Asif Bachani (Hyd) bt Ibrahim Tawab 6-1, 6-2.

Friday’s fixtures:

Juniors U-17 singles: (second round), men’s singles (pre-quarter-finals) 10am; boys U-15 singles (second round) 12.30pm; ladies singles (first round), men’s doubles 2.30pm.