26 Pak players in Scottish Junior Open

KARACHI: As many as 26 squash players from Pakistan are participating in Scottish Junior Open that is to be held in Edinburgh, Scotland from December 28-30.

According to the entry list, M Ahmed, M Amir, M Sohail, Ahsan Akhtar, Mahnoor Ali, Mehwish Ali, Sehrish Ali, Varun Asif, Wasay Faisal, M Shamlan, Ibrahim Habib, M Hussain, Azan Ali, M Ali, Faizan Ali, Momin Khan, Raafay Rauf, Yaha Khan, Mubarik Ali, M Ibrahim, Abdullah Nadeem, Huzaifa Shahid, Sufyan Shahid, M Usman, Sakhi Khan, and Ahmed Yasser are featuring in this event.

Meanwhile, local squash fraternity shows concerns over this big participation from local junior players in less-competitive events like Scottish Junior Open.

“There was a time when our junior players regularly featured in highly competitive events like Penang Open and Red Tone Open in Malaysia,” said a local coach while talking to ‘The News’.

But, he added, today featuring in European events like this one (Scottish Junior) has become a joy trip for our junior squash players as they don’t face any sort of tough competition there.

“This has also become a business for some officials of provincial squash associations and they take big contingents of junior players in such events every year,” said the coach.

The coach said that participation in these European events will not benefit our players due to low competition there and they will not learn anything to develop their game.

“It seems that our junior players are running away from competitive events as they just want participation in less-competitive European events and to enjoy trips,” said the coach.