20 Mar 2017
Doha, 20 March 2017. Aspire Academy hosts a Professional Squash Association (PSA) event from 21st – 23rd March which will see current student athletes and Aspire graduates compete for honours along with some visiting players. The tournament will feature some of the best squash players in Qatar, including Qatar number two and defending champion Syed Azlan Amjad who won the inaugural event last year. Amjad, who has now risen to 212 in the world rankings, will be strong favourite to retain the title he won in November.
His main competition will come in the form of number 2 seed and world number 292 Umair Zaman, world number 341 and Qatar number 3 Abdulrahman Al-Malki, and former world number 70, Mohammed El-Said from Jordan. Zaman and Al-Malki, both Aspire graduates, are set to meet in one semi-final, whist El-Said is due to meet Amjad in the other semi-final. Looking to upset the seedings this year is a visiting team from Spain. The 6 strong team are something of an unknown quantity, with Kike Garcia and Xurxo Codesito Perez standing out as potential contenders in the event. With Garcia due to meet Amjad in the quarter finals and Perez due to meet Zaman in the same round, they will provide stern early tests for the Aspire scholarship holders.
Four current Aspire students, Hamad Al-Amri, Rashid Al-Harib, Abdulaziz Al-Ishaq and Waleed Zaman are also playing in the event.
The match times are as follows:
1st round matches will be 4-6pm on Tuesday
Quarter finals will be 6-8pm on Tuesday
Semi-finals will be 5pm & 6pm on Wednesday