ISLAMABAD - Six-member Pakistan contingent will take part in the World Junior Individual Squash championship-2019, which will be held in Malaysia from July 30th to August 4.
Pakistani players include, Haris Qasim, Hamza Sharif, Mohammad Farhan Hashmi, Noor Zaman, Mohammad Hamza Khan and Naveed Rehman, while two officials Group Captain Tahir Sultan, Secretary Pakistan Squash Federation will accompany the contingent as manager and Asif Khan will be the coach, the contingent will depart from Lahore late Thursday night. Pakistan Squash Federation has arranged comprehensive training at Pakistan National Squash Academy for the selected players to extract best possible results for the world junior championship.
While talking exclusively to The Nation just before departure Pakistan Squash Federation Secretary Group Captain Tahir Sultan said: “I agree we had given immense amount of training to these players. But I admit, it is still short of world level. We can provide every possible help to players, but we can’t play for them. They need to be mentally very tough as too much respect to opponents won’t help their cause.”
“It is Under-19 level tournament and other countries have fielded their best possible squads while we relied on the juniors and provided opportunity to the U-15 players, U-17 players keeping future in mind. Winning with those players, who are playing last event won’t help Pakistan’s cause. We believe strongly in our future. For me Haris Qasim and Muhammad Hamza could be the dark horse. If Haris played according to his potential, he is hard to beat. Hamza is junior and short in height, it might be disadvantage, but he is capable of defeating any given player if he plays his natural game,” Tahir concluded.