Tayyab through to last 16 in squash event

Second seed now faces Japan’s Tsukue in junior world championship.

KARACHI: Second-seeded Tayyab Aslam moved into the last 16 of the World Junior Individual Squash Championship after beating Qatar’s Azlan Amjad 3-1 in their third-round clash in Netherlands.

The current Asian champion started poorly as he was pipped in the first game by Amjad, but it was enough to fire up Tayyab, who lost out in the quarter-finals of the last edition.

He came back strongly in the next game and upped the ante in the following two to triumph 10-12, 11-3, 11-6, 11-7.

The Lahore-based player will now take on Japan’s Ryunosuke Tsukue for a place in the quarter-finals.

Tayyab — along with other Pakistani players except Abbas Shaukat — received a bye in the first round and defeated USA’s Spencer Lovejoy 11-7, 11-1, 11-3 in the second round.

Meanwhile, Ahsan Ayaz fell in his first match, going down 3-1 against Frenchman Victor Crouin.

Asim Khan is through to the third round after a convincing 11-9, 11-7, 11-6 victory over Portugal’s Jorge Gomez.

Israr Ahmed too was through to the third round after winning 3-0 against Kuwait’s Mohammad Ali.

Abbas, who had won his first-round match against Ukraine’s Dmytro Pogrebnyak 3-0, was defeated by Egypt’s Youssef Soliman — seeded joint third — 9-11, 11-6, 11-4, 11-5.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28^th,  2015.

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