ISLAMABAD -  Waqas Mehboob and Syed Ali Bokhari registered upset victories in the $25,000 President Gold Cup International Squash Championship 2017 main qualifying round matches, as they stunned Bilal Zakir and Abbas Shoukat respectively here at Mushaf Squash Complex on Sunday.

Waqas was playing against former Asian Junior Team championship winner Bilal Zakir, while Ali was up against Abbas. Ali must considered himself lucky to get second chance, as once a qualifier remained absent and then Asim Khan was promoted to main round, so he got another opportunity, which he took from both hands.  In the first encounter of the day, Waqas simply outclassed Bilal, who looked highly upset with referee’s decisions and also twice got conduct warning in the third game and a conduct stroke was also given against him for continuous protests and showing decent.

Waqas took only 7 minutes to take the first game 11-4 while in the second game, Bilal simply outclassed struggling Bilal, who looked highly agitated and frustrated with chair referee Munawar Zaman’s decisions and thrice opened the door and wanted to know what was going on, but Munawar asked him to play instead of wasting time. Waqas took the game 11-8 in 14 minutes. Bilal started the third game on a positive note and raced onto to take 3-0 lead, but once again some close calls went against him, which was too difficult for Bilal to handle. He looked aggressive and wanted to know what kind of refereeing had been going on, upon that Munawar gave Bilal conduct warning and immediately gave conduct stroke against him. Bilal lost patience and just threw away the game, as Waqas took the third game 11-6 to complete outstanding victory in 32 minutes and set final qualifying round match against Israr Ahmed.

In another match of the day, Ali Bokhari beat Abbas Shoukat 3-1 in 40 minutes of top class squash. Ali took the first game 11-6 with utmost ease, but Abbas then bounced back in style and took the second game 11-4. After playing so well, Abbas then gave too much liberty to Ali, who was looking tired and was hardly able to move freely, but both missed golden opportunities to finish of the game. It was Ali, who finally prevailed and took the game 12-10.

Once again, a tough battle was witnessed in the fourth game. Abbas was leading 6-3 and then 8-5, but Ali never lost hope and kept on pilling pressure on Abbas, and his determination and passion paid off, as he first level the game at 8-8 and then took 10-8 lead. Abbas saved one match point before Ali finished him off to take the game 11-9 to move a step closer to main round. In the other encounters of the day, Zahir Shah beat M Shoaib Hassan 3-1, 10-12, 11-7, 11-5, 11-6, Ismail Rauf beat M Farhan 3-1, 11-5, 13-15, 11-5, 11-8, Waqar Mehboob beat Kashif Asif 3-0, 11-2, 11-3, 11-9, Faraz Muhammad beat Raees Khan 3-2, 8-11, 11-7, 12-10, 4-11, 11-7, Sadam Ul Haq beat Kuwaiti Ahmad Al Mudhaf 3-0, 11-7, 11-4, 11-9. In the last encounter of the day, Israr Ahmad beat Zeeshan Khan 3-1. Israr won the first game 11-8, lost the second 9-11, won the third 11-9 and then fourth 11-4 to win the match. Today (Monday), four players will join 12 others in the first round.