ISLAMABAD - Seasoned campaigner Farhan Mehboob continued his brilliant run in the $18,000 13th CNS International Squash Championship-2018 as he beat Hong Kong’s Tsz Kwan Lau 3-1 in the quarterfinals played at Pakistan Navy Roshan Khan Jahangir Khan Squash Complex, Fleet Club in Karachi Saturday.
Mehboob started the first game in awesome style and simply outclassed Tsz and took the game 11-2. He was stunned by Tsz in the second game as the youngster took the game 11-9. But after losing second game, Mehboob started to play highly aggressive squash and didn’t let his opponent off the hook and took the third game 11-3 and continued with same pressure in the 4th game to wrap up the game 11-4, thus winning the encounter in 28 minutes to set up semi-final date with compatriot second seed Asim Khan.
In the other quarterfinals, Egyptian Youssef Ibrahim made the biggest upset as he ousted top seed Mexico’s Arturo Salazar 3-1 in 45 minutes. Youssef lost the first game 9-11 but after that it was all Youssef, as he took second game 11-2, third game 12-10 and 4th game 11-6 to set semi-final fixture with Shahjahan Khan.
In the third quarterfinal, Shahjahan made another upset as he brushed aside 4th seed Kuwaiti Ammar Altamimi 3-1 in 30 minutes of top class squash on offer. Shahjahan lost first game 5-11. He bounced back to take second game 12-10, third game 11-3 and 4th game 11-2. In the 4th and last quarterfinal, second seed Asim Khan came from two games down to beat 5th seed Rui Soares 3-2 in more than 1 hour. Asim lost first two games 6-11, 4-11 before finally waking up and winning next three games 11-1, 11-8 and 11-9.