ISLAMABAD Pakistan's Nasir Iqbal will appear Cannon Kirk Homes Irish Open Squash Championship in Dublin, Ireland, which will start from April 24. Nasir, who wanted to leave early to acclimatise himself with Irish conditions but visa issues delayed his departure, will leave now for Dublin tomorrow (Monday) from Karachi to play in the main round of the event. In an interview with The Nation, Nasir said it was his first-ever $ 15,000 event and he had worked hard for the event and training camp in Abbottabad really helped him to improve his physical and mental fitness. “I had never gone through such an intensive training throughout my life. Professional Army trainers had really worked very hard and their impressive way of imparting training would benefit each and every player who was present in the camp.”Nasir said he was satisfied with his preparation for the event and quite confident to perform well and returned home victorious. Speaking about the prospects of him lifting the Asian Seniors title in front of home crowd, Nasir said the competition would be tough as all the opponents had a great deal of international exposure and had played in number of PSA events as compared to our players, but still we have some quality players. He said if Aamir Atlas regained full fitness then he would be a serious contender to lift this prestigious event while Danish, Farhan Mahboob and he had equal chances of progressing and posing serious challenge to all opponents. He said the federation should provide maximum PSA events to at least top players so that they could improve their international ranking. He said the Pakistani players were at par with international players but the lack of the international exposure cost them dearly. He also requested the corporate sector and sponsors to lend a helping hand to federation in fulfilling their ambitions of sending the players abroad for future training and participation in PSA events.