Nasir to resume international career from tomorrow

KARACHI: Pakistan’s former number one squash player Nasir Iqbal is all set to resume his international career from Tuesday (tomorrow).

After completing a four-year ban, imposed by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Nasir is playing his first international PSA event in Karachi. Nasir has got entry in all five international PSA Satellite events that are to be held at Sindh Rangers Squash Complex here from March 3-16.

“The first of the events is Sindh Open Squash Satellite-1 that is to be played from March 3-4,” said Usama Khan, the promoter, while talking to ‘The News’.

He added that the winner of this event will get $400 (Rs60,400) and the runner-up is to receive $200 (Rs30,200), while the semi-finalists will get $100 (Rs15,100) and the quarter-finalists $50 (Rs7,550).

Usama said that the main draw is of 16 places and top seed is Ammad Fareed, while other players are Zahir Shah, Waqas Mehboob, Ali Bukhari, Noor Zaman, M Farhan, Saeed Abdul, Farhan Hashmi, Waqar Mehboob, Bilal Zakir, Salman Saleem, Abdul Qadir, Haseeb Taj, Zeeshan Zaib, and Faizan Khan.

“We have received overwhelming response from the national players since this is happening for the very first time in Karachi that five back-to-back international events are being held. “This is a very good opportunity for our players to better their international rankings,” said Usama.

He said that they had given a special favour to Nasir Iqbal to revive his international career and once again become number one player of the country. “After playing these events, Nasir’s ranking will improve substantially and since he will get two wild cards in top international events in the coming months in Pakistan and the US he stands a good chance to achieve his goal of becoming number one player of the country once again,” said Usama.