Zaman & Iskandar To Contest Lahore Final

The top two seeds Shahid Zaman and Mohd Azlan Iskandar will contest the final of the PTCL Pakistan Circuit No2 Championship after surviving testing five-game semi-finals against lower-ranked opposition at the Punjab Squash Complex in Lahore.

Event favourite Shahid Zaman, from Quetta in Pakistan, opened up a two-game lead over local hero Khayal Muhammad, the unseeded 21-year-old from Lahore who upset third seed Alex Gough to reach the last four.

But, despite enduring an 83-minute semi-final battle only 24 hours earlier, Muhammad dug deep to fight back and level the match. It was a re-focused Zaman, however, that came back for the decider and, after 75 minutes, the UK-based world No17 claimed his 11-5 11-9 10-11 4-11 11-6 victory - and a place in his ninth PSA Tour final.

The other semi-final was a seesaw affair as Pakistan's No4 seed Mansoor Zaman, a cousin of the favourite, twice levelled the match after Iskandar, the No2 seed, won the first and third games.

But the Malaysian maintained the upper hand in the fifth game to earn an 11-8 8-11 11-8 7-11 11-3 win in 51 minutes.

The final promises to be a close-fought affair, with 23-year-old Iskandar - who is also celebrating his ninth PSA final appearance - just one place below Zaman in the latest world rankings. It will be the pair's first meeting this year - following two in 2004 in which honours were shared.

Semi-finals:
[1] Shahid Zaman (PAK) bt Khayal Muhammad (PAK) 11-5, 11-9, 10-11, 4-11, 11-6 (75m)
[2] Mohd Azlan Iskandar (MAS) bt [4] Mansoor Zaman (PAK) 11-8, 8-11, 11-8, 7-11, 11-3 (51m)