Pakistan Satellite #1 : Nasir and Faiza triumph

The Semi Finals were played in the morning. In the women category Madina Zafar created an upset by beating top seed Amaad Farid, and in the other Semi final Faiza Zafar beat Rushna Mehboob.

In the Men’s Semi Final top seed Amaad Farid beat Noor Zaman  and Nasir Iqbal who is making comeback after a gap of four years,  created upset by beating Waqas Mehmoob

The Finals were played in the evening where in the women’s elder sister Faiza zafar had no mercy for younger sister Madina Zafar and beat her in a tough five game fight. In the men’s final  Nasir Iqbal created another upset beating top seat Amaad Farid in straight games.

The finals were watched by a great crowd, and chief guest Mr. Salman Tahir distributed prizes among the winners.

Racket Sports is organizing five international satellite squash events in Karachi from March 3-16m as stated by tournament promoter Usama Khan at a press conference at Sindh Rangers Jahangir Khan Squash Complex here on Tuesday.

“The first event is to be held from March 3-4, the second from March 6-7, the third from March 9-10, the fourth from March 12-13, and the fifth will be held from March 15-16.

“Each event carries the prize money of $1000 for men and $500 for women. The draw is of 16 places and all top players of the country are participating in it.

“The winner of each men’s 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),” said Usama Khan.

Pakistan’s former number one squash player Nasir Iqbal is also playing these events after completing his 4-year ban imposed by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

“I am very excited to resume my international career and am happy that it is happening here in Karachi. I hope that I will regain my position as the number one player of the country,” said Nasir.

Meanwhile, former world number four Maqsood Ahmed said that 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 Pakistani squash players to better their international rankings since they don’t easily afford to go abroad to play international events,” said Maqsood.

Other players who are participating in these events are Ammad Fareed, 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.

The tournament director is Fahim Gul, who is World Squash Federation’s Assessor from Pakistan.