Female squash players looking for glory

Squad leaves for Asiad along with male contingent.

KARACHI: Pakistan’s female squash players reaffirmed their commitment to make their presence felt at the Asian Games as the sport’s contingent on Wednesday left for the continental event to be held in Incheon, Korea.

The women’s team will be led by Maria Toorpakai Wazir, while the rest of the squad comprises talented youngsters Samar Anjum and Riffat Khan and seasoned player Muqaddas Ashraf.

They had produced good performances at the Senior Asian Team Championship as well, surpassing the expectations of the Pakistan Squash Federation by finishing sixth out of 10 teams.



The female squash players’ rise has historically been slow-paced due to lack of international exposure, but now they have started to emerge from the shadows and are not solely dependent on star player Maria.

“We’re going to the Asian Games with a target of garnering even better results than the Asian Team Championship,” Samar told The Express Tribune.

“There is a strong sense of self-belief within the team with Maria leading the squad, but we want to help her out and win individually too. The goal is to improve on our previous performances and hopefully that would push us to do well in the event.”

Samar added that they did not get as much practice as they would have liked due to the current political unrest in Islamabad.

Meanwhile, the men’s side includes Pakistan’s top seed Nasir Iqbal, Farhan Zaman, Farhan Mehboob and Danish Atlas Khan.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 18^th, 2014.

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