NOOR | Pakistan

Noor Zaman surged in the global squash rankings to break through in the Top 30 on Monday and reach a career best after a scintillating performance at last week’s Karachi Open that saw all six Pakistani players at the tournament improve in the PSA list. Noor reached world number 30 on the Professional Squash Association (PSA) rankings, having achieved his previous career best of 37 on October 27 after a series of international wins. The 21-year-old gave former world champion Mohamed Elshorbagy a run for his money as he took the Englishman to five intense games at the Karachi Open quarterfinals before being defeated 3-2, thereby ending Pakistan’s streak at the international championship. Noor, the U23 world champion at the same venue last year, is no stranger to strong comebacks and lengthy, five-game matches. He was narrowly defeated in the fifth game with a match scoreline of 11-2, 11-8, 6-11, 8-11, 11-9. Former world number one Elshorbagy called Noor one of the most focused players he’s ever seen. “It’s grea...

Tempers flared and expletives were hurled across the squash court faster than the ball as Egyptian squash player Fares Dessouky got into a heated argument with the referee and abandoned the match in the fifth game, which automatically allowed Pakistan’s Noor Zaman to advance to the quarterfinal of the Karachi Open. Home favourite Noor was Pakistan’s last hope to make it to the quarterfinals after Ashab Irfan and Nasir Iqbal were eliminated from the tournament earlier in the day. Noor was two sets down as Dessouky took the first two games 11-8, 11-9. View this post on Instagram Tensions had been building throughout the match, with Dessouky in the second game questioning how the score had reached 6-4 when it should have been 5-4. Spectators and international athletes alike, as well as squash icon Jahangir Khan sitting front row to the action, murmured that the score should be 5-4. Dessouky took the second game as Noor’s coach gave him a pep talk that ostensibly helped him win the third game 11-5. Dessouky, curr...

Pakistan’s squash renaissance is guaranteed a homegrown champion as young compatriots and relatives Hamza Khan and Noor Zaman Khan stormed into the final of the Chief of Air Staff (CAS) Serena Hotel International Squash Championship on Thursday, setting up an all-Pakistan title decider. The final, to be played on Friday, pits the world number 101, Hamza, against the second seed and world number 43, Noor, with both players expressing their ambition to restore Pakistan to its former glory on the global squash scene. Hamza continued his sensational run in the tournament, adding Switzerland’s David Bernet to his list of scalps just a day after stunning top-seeded Egyptian Karim El Hamamy. He secured a gripping 11-9, 11-13, 12-10, 11-5 victory in a 55-minute semi-final thriller. After an evenly matched first game, Bernet mounted a comeback, edging a nail-biting second set. Hamza reclaimed control, winning a tight third set before dominating the fourth with powerful cross-court shots to seal the match. “I am super ...

THE death penalty awarded to Zahir Jaffar for the brutal killing of Noor Mukadam in 2021 has been upheld by the Supreme Court. The court has reiterated that the murderer must pay for the crime with his life. It is, no doubt, a dire sentence — this paper, in principle, opposes capital punishment. The judges, it must be noted, did commute the death sentence on the rape charge to life imprisonment, and the kidnapping sentence from 10 years to one. However, when it came to the murder charge, it appears they felt it necessary to match the severity of the crime with the severity of the punishment. Many well-wishers hope that the verdict will bring the Mukadam family some closure after their long ordeal to secure justice for their murdered daughter. Noor’s brutal killing had shaken the Pakistani public out of its reverie to take note of the misogyny and domestic violence prevalent in society. The case had been closely followed. The evidence, eyewitness accounts, and sequence of events stitched together by the media ...