RAWALPINDI - Lioness Maria Toorpai Wazir becomes the crowned champion of the  $10,000 Second Bahria Town International Women Squash Championship as she staged a truly remarkable victory against top seed South African Siyoli Waters.
Maria won in five classical games 3-2 in 46-minutes long battle, which was dully enjoyed by the overwhelming crowd, who remained vocal and right behind Maria right from the word go. Seventh seed Maria continued her giant killing dream run in the event and lived up to the occasion as she never looked in any sort of trouble and started the first game very brightly.
After leading the majority of the first game, she let her comfortable lead slip thrice. She was leading 5-1, then it was 5-5 before Maria took commanding 9-5 lead only to let the lead slip as the game was leveled at 9-9. At that stage crowd bucked Maria and chanted slogans in her favour, which did the trick as Maria won the next two points to take the first game 11-9 in 9 minutes. It was all Maria in the second game as she raced onto to take 4-0 lead before once again allowing Waters to reduce the deficit. It was 5-5, 6-6 and 7-7 before Maria shut the doors on Waters and won next 4 points on trot to seal the game 11-7 in 9 minutes. After almost down and out, Waters suddenly found some strength from South African High Commission guests including High Commissioners wife, who lend full support to her, as she showed glimpses of her class and why she was the top seed of the event. Waters won the game 11-6 in just 6 minutes.
Fourth game was played on very high tempo, Maria was seemingly upset with her number of unforced errors and was fully aware of the fact, she can’t afford too many mistakes. Credit must be given to Pakistani players, who remained right behind Maria throughout the match, backing her up, cheering her to play aggressively and asking her to relax. Especially Zoya Khalid remained instrumental in cheering Maria when she was looking tired, down and out. Maria could have seal the fate of the match in the 4th game as she was serving for the title when she was 10-9 up but she wasted golden opportunity as she hit the tin twice tin, which gifted Waters fourth game 12-10 in 11 minutes. It was see saw battle in the 4th game, Maria was 2-5, then 3-7, down, but she staged tremendous comeback in the game as she level the game at 9-9 and then was serving for the championship at 10-9 but Waters kept her nervous and won the game 12-10 right under Maria’s nose.
The deciding game started with same passion, aggression and each and every point was cheered by the crowd. This event could have not been same success had such a fantastic crowd was not present at the venue neither Maria could have taken the title, as she was enjoying overwhelming crowd support. There was hardly any step available where a spectator was not present.
Maria took 4-2 lead in the deciding game then it was 7-4, but once again Maria let Waters off the hook and the game was tied at 7-7, then it was 8-8 and 9-9, but Waters committed huge mistake as she hit the tin, which gave Maria match point at 10-9. But Maria missed a golden opportunity as she too hit the ball into the tin. But Waters was clearly feeling the pressure as she made another mistake, which allowed Maria second chance to finish the match, in which Maria remained successful and won the game 12-10 in 11 minutes to clinch her maiden international title at home. A total of 30 international players of seven countries participated in the six-day event.
Maria received cash prize of $ 1,444 along with beautiful trophy, while the runners up received $ 988 along with runners up trophy.  Air Marshal Saeed M Khan Acting Vice Chief of Air Staff was the chief guest on the occasion.