ISLAMABAD, Dec 3: Pakistan’s emerging squash duo Aamir Atlas Khan and Farhan Mehboob Khan are now among the top-20 players according to the latest rankings released on Dec 1.

With his superb performance in the recently-concluded Pakistan Open and other professional circuits, Aamir has been placed at No 16 in the world rankings surging ahead 15 slots, as earlier he was ranked at No 31. Farhan Mehboob also improved his ranking and is now at No 20 in the world.

Talking to Dawn on Wednesday Pakistan’s legendary squash player Jansher Khan said: “It’s very nice to see young players moving upward in world squash rankings but the important issue is maintaining these rankings.”

He further added that if both players consistently performed well in the international PSA events and remained among the top 20 players for the next six months then one can hope for change in Pakistan squash.

Shahid Zaman was last ranked World No 14 in the PSA rankings back in the year 2005.

With this ranking, Farhan said, they would be playing in the main rounds of the PSA tournaments except super-series championship.

He remarked that they were expected to play more tournaments in next year’s PSA calendar.

Meanwhile, squash player Mansoor Zaman is also up by six points making it at No 29 followed by Yasir Butt at No 45 after putting up a good performance in the recently-held Pakistan Open. Amir Atlas was the winner of the Pakistan Open final, however, home court and lack of participation of top foreign players edged Pakistani squash players to perform well in the championship.