LAHORE: Top seed Tayyab Aslam and Salman Saleem cruised into the semi-finals but third seed Israr Ahmed and Asim Khan had to work to book their place in the last four in the CM-Punjab International Squash Championships on Wednesday.

Tayyab’s powerful shots left Waqar Mahboob guessing as he won his quarter-final 11-6, 11-5, 11-6 in 21 minutes while Salman sent Mehran Javed packing in just 26 minutes with a 11-5, 11-8, 11-8 win.

The real contest came in the third quarter-final where Israr scraped past Noor Zaman 8-11, 11-7, 3-11, 11-3, 14-12 in a 41-minute see-saw battle.

Asim, meanwhile, came from two games down to overcome Waqas Mahboob 6-11, 6-11, 11-4, 11-2, 11-9 (3-2) in 51 minutes.

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2021