PESHAWAR, Dec 19 (APP):Bias refereeing marred Pakistan’s Humam Ahmad hunt for the gold medal against Rohan A Gondi of India in the U-13 final of the World US 2018 Junior Open Squash Championship played at Philips Academy, Andover, Boston USA.
Humam was playing his fifth game after leveling the game tally 2-2 and was up at 4-2, 6-2, 8-6, 8-7
and even 9-7 when he given a conduct warning stroke to Rohan A Gondhi of India,making his score to 9-8.
Similarly another error was made by the referee and instead of giving point to Humam to make it 10-8, he again given two more points as conduct warning stroke and game to Rohan A Gondhi and thus Rohan won the last and decisive set at 11-9. Team coach Muhammad Asif also registered
players’ concern about the refereeing to the organizers.
Pakistan Squash Federation (PSF) has also raised its concerns on the refereeing during Finals of US Junior Squash Championship, played on 18 December, 2018.
“We have to send a written complaint over the bias refereeing in the important event and asked the management of the US 2018 Junior Open Squash to overview the match video through a penal
of referees and take immediate action against field referee for being biased,”an official of the Pakistan Squash Federation said. “It is certainly very concerning for the players preparing themselves whole heartedly and in the end with such a bias referee all of sudden decisions turned the important final to
an otherwise,” he added.
In the event Finals, Humam Ahmad from Pakistan won silver medal in U-13 by losing to Rohan A Gondhi from India with a game score of 4-11, 12-10, 10-12, 12-10 and 9-11 whereas, Muhammad
Hamza Khan from Pakistan also won Silver Medal in U-15 category by losing to Carney
Tedd from USA with a game score of 11-7, 8-11, 6-11 and 7-11.
Both the finalist Pakistani players have informed PSF that refereeing was not up to the mark and
had flaws. They further claimed that few of referee decisions were not entirely fair.
These players have protested against poor refereeing during the event and requested US Squash that the refereeing standard should be improved in future to save players from any further loss, the release issued by PSF as says.
It is worth mentioning here that both Pakistanis Humam Ahmad and Hamza Khan made upsets in the US 2018 Junior Open Squash Championship.
Humam Ahmad and Muhammad Hamza Khan made upsetting defeat to their strong rivals and moved to the grand finals of the Under-13 and Under-15 categories.
It was the quarter-final where Humam Ahmad of Pakistan recorded a stamping victory against top seeded Salem Youssef from Egypt with a game score of 13-11, 9-11, 8-11, 11-8 and 13-11.
After upsetting his strong rival from Eygpt, Humam Ahmad from Pakistan beat Ahmad Haq from USA in the semi-final in straight sets with a game score of 11-7, 11-6 and 11-9.
Muhammad Hamza also made upset when he beat
Mohamed Abdullah from Egypt by 11-9, 11-9 and 12-10.
After US 2018 Junior Open,Pakistan Squad Humam Ahmad (U13), Muhammad Hamza Khan (U15), Noor Zaman (U15),Abbas Zeb (U19) will be leaving for Birmingham, United Kingdom this night to
represent Pakistan in the forthcoming British Junior Squash Championship
wherein they join Haris Qasim, Farhan Hashmi, Asad Ullah Khan, Muhammad Ashab
Irfan and Anas Ali Shah, who earlier departed from Islamabad Tuesday, last.
Contingent Manager Air Commodore (Retd) Aftab Sadiq Qureshi along with Coaches
Mohammad Yasin and Fazal Shah also accompanied the contingent.
The Championship would be commencing from January 2-6, 2019. However, before
entering into the Championship, PSF selected players would remain under training for 10 days in UK so that they could perform well and produce outstanding results during the Championship. “We are focusing on the upcoming young players and that is why setup a training schedule for the players in UK
so to acclimatize with the condition,” Secretary Pakistan Squash Federation
Tahir Sultan said.
He also expressed the way both Humam and Hamza played in the US 2018 Junior Open Squash Championship and both made upset top seeded players besides playing the quarter-finals and
semi-finals on the same day.
It was an important event and matches like quarter-finals and semi-finals playing on the same day could not justified but the players played well and showed their potential, he
further added.
