Top juniors not to go to Malaysia: PSF official

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) has decided not to send top junior players to Malaysia for the two back to back events, allowing them to compete against seniors in the circuit tournaments to be held in Lahore and Karachi.

A record number of 19 Pakistan juniors have been drawn to compete in the Borneo and Penang junior championships in Malaysia.

The strength, however, does not include the names of six top local juniors who have been selected to participate in the World Junior Squash Championship (individual and team event) to be held in Chennai (India) from July 18-29. These include Abbas Zeb, Uzair Rasheed, Haris Qasim, Farhan Hashmi, Asadullah and Uzair Shokat.

“All the Chennai-bound players have been asked to compete in the PSA Circuit events to be held in Pakistan rather than competing in the events starting in Malaysia in a week time. The reason being that here they would get much better competition against ranked players. So it would be easier to monitor their progress,” a PSF official when contacted said.

He said that the decision was taken to provide them the best contest. “Playing against the juniors in Malaysia would not be ideal scenario for them. Instead, they would be engaged in training cum competition process here in Pakistan.”

Lahore is to host $10,000 international circuit contest from June 25 with action shifting to Karachi at the start of July for yet another $10,000 event. “The two circuit events would provide the juniors best platform to improve their resilience ahead of the World Junior Championship,” the official said.

Pakistan contingent is expected to travel to India in the second week of July. “The exposure against the seniors would help juniors get into top shape for the world championship.”

PSF has submitted the required documents for the Indian visa in late April and are waiting for the travel documents enabling the team to leave in time for the Chennai competition.

Meanwhile, a record number of juniors would travel to Malaysia for the two events. “These are the back-up players. Our effort is to invest heavily on juniors and we are doing it with the help of our provincial associations. The crop would act as our back-up for the coming international junior contests,” the official said.

The Malaysia-bound junior players include Yasin Khattak, Noor Zaman, Hamza Khan, Mohammad Ammad, Khushal Riaz, Hammad Khan, Zeeshan Zeb, Abdullah Nadim, Usman Nadeem, Talah bin Zubair, Ashab Irfan, Tayyab Rauf, Subhan Ahmad, Oan Abbas and Hasnain.