Squash trials for world championship delayed

PSF still contemplating over format to choose final squad.

KARACHI: The final stage of trials for the upcoming World Team Championship in France next month was postponed as the Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) was unable to finalise a format.

The initial trials had already been conducted among lower-ranked players from which Sheikh Saqib Yousuf, Farhan Zaman, Tayyab Aslam and Mansoor Zaman qualified. They are now supposed to compete against top players Aamir Atlas Khan, Farhan Mehboob, Nasir Iqbal and Danish Atlas.

While the trails were scheduled to start yesterday, the day ended in a meeting among PSF officials who could not finalise the format for the final trials — a lengthy discussion also took place about the exemption of Aamir and Farhan.

Both Aamir, the Asian champion, and Farhan have asked to be exempted as they believe their seniority and experience justifies their place in the team without the trials.



“The PSF is still pondering over how to conduct these final trials,” a PSF official told The Express Tribune. “No decision has been taken on whether to exempt the top players from the trials or not. We want to avoid any controversy leading up to the world championship and we also don’t want a deadlock between the players and the PSF. Thus, an executive meeting might be called upon.”

The top players are also irked over the fact that Mansoor Zaman, who is the son of former world champion Qamar Zaman, never gave trials when he was Pakistan number one, while his cousin Shahid Zaman was exempted as well.

But Qamar, who is also PSF’s vice president, has insisted that everyone would have to appear in the trials as the PSF was not going to go by previously applied double standards.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 14^th, 2013.