14 foreign players in Pakistan Chief of Air Staff event

KARACHI: As many as 14 foreign squash players are coming to Pakistan to play $30,000 Pakistan Chief of Air Staff International event to be held in Islamabad from September 10-14.

According to the entry list, which closed on Wednesday, World No 20 Leo Au from Hong Kong is the top seed, while World No 41 Nafiizwan Adnan from Malaysia is second seed.

Egypt’s Karim Ali Fathi, Omar Abdel Meguid, Youssef Soliman, Mohamed Reda, Karim El Hammamy, Mazen Gamal are seeded third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth, respectively.

Other foreign players in the main draw are Ivan Yuen from Malaysia, Mostafa Asal (under-19) from Egypt, Shehab Essam from Egypt, Ahmed Hosny from Egypt, Aqeel Rehman from Austria, and Sajad Zareian Jahromi from Iran.

Pakistani players in the main draw are 12th seed Asim Khan, 14th seed Farhan Mehboob, 15th seed Tayyab Aslam, 16th seed Ahsan Ayaz, 17th seed Farhan Zaman, 19th seed Shahjahan Khan, 20th seed Israr Ahmed, and 21st seed Ammad Fareed.

There are 24 players (eight seeds, two wildcards) in the main draw. Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) gave wild cards to World No 438 Abbas Zeb (U19) and World No 540 Aamir Atlas Khan.

It is to be noted here that 16 foreign players entered their names in the event but they could not make it to the main draw because of the new policy of Professional Squash Association (PSA) under which no qualifying rounds will be played.