10 players withdraw from U-23 World Squash Championship

KARACHI: As many as 10 players have withdrawn from the inaugural Under-23 World Squash Championship that starts at Creek Club here on Sunday (today).

Initially, 64 players were announced as the participants by the World Squash Federation for this championship but the latest draws show there are only 54 entries for two events.

The current list of players shows that those who have withdrawn are Zhou Penglin, Wasey Maqsood, Jason Sano Herring, Jassim Adel Al Ghareeb, Arhan Chandra, Zhang Guanyu, Mohammed Nasser, Laouenan Loaec, Tam Tsz Shing.

It is to be noted that this World Championship already hit a controversy when Punjab Squash Association (PSA) accused Pakistan Squash Federation of injustice by allotting this event to Sindh Squash Association despite the fact that the PSA wanted to offer the prize money of $100,000 for this championship.

It was reported by The News in October last year that Secretary PSA Tariq Siddiq Malik wrote a letter to PSF and offered to host this event in November 2024 with the prize money of $100,000.

“Punjab Squash wants to host this World U-23 Squash Tournament in Lahore with the prize money of $100,000 from November 24-29. Kindly confirm the availability of the dates,” stated Secretary PSA in a letter to Secretary PSF.

But the federation allotted the hosting rights of this event to SSA, which disappointed PSA.

“This was not justified. We approached PSF on August 21, 2024 for the hosting rights of this event and that too with very high prize money. But they allotted this event to SSA with much lower prize money. This was not right,” said an official of PSA while talking to ‘The News’.

The official added that Adnan Asad is the Vice President of PSF which is the possible reason why the PSF favoured him with the hosting rights of this event.

However, Adnan termed the claim of PSA false and said it was he who approached WSF for this event during the WSF World Junior Championships in the United States in July last year.

“I had a meeting with WSF officials and bid for this event as it would help our players,” said Adnan, adding that the event was first to be held in November 2024 year but due to clash of dates with Professional Squash Association’s events it was moved to April 2025.