KARACHI: Pakistan's Hamza Khan won the World Junior Squash Championship in Melbourne on Sunday.
He beat Egypt's Mohamed Zakaria in the final with a scoreline of 10-12, 14-12, 11-3 and 11-6.
Despite losing the first game, Hamza made a grand comeback to win three on the bounce.
Hamza also becomes the first player to win the event from Pakistan after Jansher Khan, who cliched the title 37 years ago.
Zakaria took the first game 12-10, which lasted for 26 minutes to take the lead.
The second game was another thrilling encounter. The Pakistani player was down 8-10 but he denied Zakaria the much-needed game point twice and levelled the match with a 14-12 win.
The next two games were totally a contradiction to what everyone witnessed in first two games. Hamza won the third game without much resistance in six minutes with score of 11-3 before winning the fourth 11-6.
Hamza qualified for the final of the World Junior Squash Championship on Saturday. French player Melvil Scianimanico fought back from two games and match ball down but Hamza prevailed in the decider to qualify for the final.
Hamza won the semi-final match with a scoreline of 11-8, 11-4, 10-12, 9-11 and 13-11.
Hamza was the first Pakistan player to reach the final of the event since Aamir Atlas in 2008.
Earlier, the Pakistani youngster defeated Malaysia’s Joachim Chuah 11-8, 9-11, 11-7, 12-10 to book his spot in the final four.
Hamza reached the quarter-finals on Thursday after defeating Colombia’s Santamaria 3-2 in a close contest in the pre-quarter-final.
Meanwhile, in the round of 16, Hamza beat Netherlands’ Samuel Grates by 12-10, 11-6, 11-3 and 11-7 on Wednesday.
Faizan Lakhani Faizan Lakhani is Deputy Editor (Sports) at Geo News.