KARACHI, Dec 17: Bespectacled Ghulam Abbas Panju stormed into the boy's singles final on Friday, shutting out Sunny Williams 6-1, 6-0 in the Salma Noorani Karachi Club tennis championship played on the hard courts of the Karachi Club.
Ghulam in tremendous form never gave his opponent a ghost of a chance, reducing Sunny to a mere passenger. Seeded at No.2 in this tournament, Ghulam will now take on top seed Heera Ashiq, the youngest of the three Ashiq brothers from Lahore, participating in this tournament.
Ironically last year Ghulam surprised Ashiq and will certainly go all out to repeat that performance. A day earlier, Heera got the better of Zain Salim 6-2, 6-3.
The men's singles final will be played between the two brothers top seed Aqeel Khan and fourth seed Jalil Khan. But the brothers had to bring out their level best to survive and go through to meet each other in the final round.
Aqeel was engaged in a tough battle for supremacy with third seed Asim Shafiq 6-4, 6-7 (7-5), 6-3, while Jalil also had quite a fight on his hands before disposing of eighth seed Shahzad Khan 6-4, 7-6 (7-4).
Top seed Nida Rahim taking over from her sister Marium, the ladies champion for many years in the past, was awarded a walk-over against fourth seed Alay Zehra, as the latter failed to turn up for her match.
However, Nida's twin, third seeded Maira failed to reach the final, going down to 14-year-old Amna Hameed 6-4, 6-2. Amna who resides in England and is a member of the British women's junior squad in the Federation Cup, lost in the final last year to the top seed Marium Rahim.
The second seed said that she would try her level best to wrest the trophy from Marium's sister Nida, this time out. Nomi Qamar, making his exit in the men's singles quarterfinal on Sunday to Shahzad Khan 7-5, 6-1, gained a measure of revenge while teaming up with M. Shafiq.
The pair blew out the lights of second seeds Asim Shafiq and Shahzad Khan to reach the men's doubles final, after a thrilling 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7-5) finish. After losing the first set 3-6, Nomi and Shafiq got their act together to level the sets scores 1-1 winning the second 6-3. In the decider, the lead changed over several times until the scores were level at 6-6, forcing the match into a tiebreaker.
Shahzad serving leading in the tiebreaker 5-4 committed an unforced error, hitting the ball out of the court to allow Nomi and Shafiq draw abreast 5-5, which soon turned to 6-5, when Shafiq's powerful backhand smash rocketed painfully into Shahzad's abdomen.
The service now with Asim however, failed to materialise when Nomi's return left his two hapless opponents stranded on the court with a backhand flick. Nomi and Shafiq will now take on the top seeds Aqeel and Jalil Khan, who ended the fighting combination of Wasif Cheema and Mehmood Khan 6-3, 6-2.
Earlier, Wasif and Mehmood had to bring out their best in ousting Saad Baloch and Rafiq Darbari 7-5, 6-4 in the quarterfinals, after the losing pair had caused quite a stir by disposing of sixth seeds Roman Gul and Irfanullah 6-4, 6-4 and were on course for creating yet another upset, before the fourth seeds got their act together to pull through to the next round.
In their earlier round on Friday, Aqeel and Jalil hardly raised up a sweat in brushing aside the Ashiq brothers Tanvir and Munir 6-1, 6-1, while Nomi and M. Shafiq were very lucky to survive against the fighting combination of Khalid Ali Nazar and lefthanded Adnan Khan, in a match that could have swung either way. Following were the results on Friday.
MEN'S SINGLES (SEMIFINALS) : Aqeel Khan bt Asim Shafiq 6-4, 6-7 (7-5), 6-3; Jalil Khan bt Shahzad Khan 6-4, 7-6 (7-4).
LADIES SINGLES (SEMIFINALS) : Amna Hameed bt Maira Rahim 6-4, 6-2; Nida Rahim w/o Alay Zehra.
BOYS SINGLES (SEMIFINALS) : Ghulam Abbas Panju bt Sunny Williams 6-1, 6-0.
MEN'S DOUBLES (QUARTERFINALS). : Wasif Cheema/Mehmood Khan bt Saad Baloch/Rafiq Darbari 7-5, 6-4; Aqeel Khan/ Jalil Khan bt Tanvir Ashiq/Munir Asiq 6-1, 6-1; Nomi Qamar/Mohammad Shafiq bt Khalid Ali Nazar/Adnan Khan 7-5, 7-5.
Following is the fixtures for Saturday.
2.00PM. JUNIORS UNDER-17 (FINALS) : Omer Baber v/s Tanvir Ashiq.
2.00PM. BOYS UNDER-13 (FINALS) : Heera Ashiq v/s Ghulam Abbas Panju.
3.00PM. LADIES (FINAL) : Nida Rahim v/s Amna Hameed.
3.30PM. MEN'S DOUBLES (FINAL) : Aqeel Khan/Jalil Khan v/s Nomi Qamar/Mohammad Shafiq.