17 Mar 2015
Doha, 17 March 2015. One of Europe’s strongest junior squash tournaments, the 'German Junior Open', took place in the Bavarian city of Nürnberg, Germany between March 13 and 15 and Aspire Academy had ten students taking part in the tournament for the first time.
The best performance of the group came from foundation year student Waleed Zaman who placed 17th in the U13 competition. In only his third ever European tournament Waleed was unfortunate to draw a top eight seed in the first round. In this match both he and his opponent played some excellent squash with Waleed narrowly losing out in four close games. Following this loss however Waleed bounced back to win his four remaining matches, all in straight sets.
In the large 64 player U17 draw, Abdelaziz Omeira and Hamad Al-Amri both won their opening matches. After being defeated by higher ranked opponents in the second round they went on to finish in 23rd and 26th place respectively.
Of the four students competing in the U15 age group Abdulaziz Al-Ishaq finished the highest taking 23rd position. This included an improved tactical performance to win his final playoff match 3/2 on the last day.
Umair Zaman performed well in the U19 event in what turned out to be a weekend of gruelling matches for him after being beaten in a tight first round match lasting over an hour. He followed this with two consecutive 3/2 victories in the plate event as well as in his final playoff match to finish in 19th position.
Details of each students results are in the table below, while full tournament results can be found at the following link
NAME |
CATEGORY |
PLAYED |
WON |
FINAL POSITION |
UMAIR ZAMAN |
U19 |
5 |
3 |
19th |
ABDELAZIZ OMEIRA |
U17 |
5 |
2 |
23rd |
HAMAD AL-AMRI |
U17 |
6 |
2 |
26th |
MOHAMMED ALYEFEI |
U15 |
5 |
1 |
44th |
ALI AL-DOSARI |
U15 |
5 |
1 |
47th |
RASHID AL-HARIB |
U15 |
6 |
3 |
35th |
ABDULAZIZ AL-ISHAQ |
U15 |
6 |
2 |
23rd |
WALEED ZAMAN |
U13 |
5 |
4 |
17th |
AHMAD AL-MERAIKHI |
U13 |
4 |
1 |
35th |
ABDULAZIZ AL-TURKI |
U13 |
4 |
0 |
36th |