Four new champions were crowned at the national junior squash championship in Lahore, where finals day at the Jahangir Khan Squash Academy produced a comeback win, a straight-games sweep, and an upset of a top seed. Muhammad Aban, Sohail Adnan, Abdul Hadi Farzan and Veshnavi won the under-11, under-15, under-9 and girls under-19 titles respectively on Wednesday, October 14, 2026.
The finals were played at the academy’s courts at the Pakistan Sports Board Coaching Centre, and the national junior squash championship brought together players from Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and departmental side SNGPL. Every final was settled on court, with no walkovers, and the standard of the rallies showed how much junior squash has grown across the country.
National Junior Squash Championship Finals: How Each Title Was Won
In the under-11 final, Muhammad Aban of Sindh beat fellow Sindh player Muhammad Bin Naseem 3-1. Aban lost the first game 4-11, then found his range and took the next three games 12-10, 12-10 and 11-4. Two of those games went to extra points, which says plenty about how tight the match was before Aban pulled away to seal the title.
The under-15 final was more one-sided. Sohail Adnan, representing SNGPL, beat Danish Sikandar of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 3-0 with game scores of 11-7, 12-10 and 11-5. Sohail had reached the final with an 11-7, 11-2, 11-7 win over Army’s Faizan Ali Khan, while Danish advanced after his semi-final opponent Fawad Khan retired hurt with Danish leading 11-9, 11-8.
Abdul Hadi Farzan of Punjab took the under-9 title with a straight-games win over Muhammad Ibrahim of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 11-5, 11-9, 11-5. Farzan had beaten Sindh’s Raif Ali Ahmed 11-3, 11-7, 11-0 in the semi-final, while Ibrahim came through against Sindh’s Muhammad Hamza 11-6, 11-6, 12-10.
The girls under-19 final was an all-Sindh contest. Veshnavi beat Damya Khan 3-0 with game scores of 11-9, 13-11 and 11-7, and she never let her opponent settle at any stage. Veshnavi had reached the final with a 3-1 upset win over top seed Amina Malik of WAPDA in the semi-final, while Damya beat Rania Qazi of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to book her place.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons (User5757), CC BY-SA 4.0 (file photo)
A Familiar Name Among the Winners
Sohail Adnan’s name will be familiar to squash followers. In January 2025 he won the British Junior Open under-13 title, beating Egypt’s top-seeded Moiz Tamir Al-Mughazi 3-2 in the final after trailing 2-1. That win ended an 18-year wait for a Pakistani winner in the category, and it earned him congratulations from PCB chairman Mohsin Naqvi. For Sohail, the national junior squash championship title in Lahore adds another national honour to a junior record that already includes international success. Read the Geo Super report on his British Junior Open win.
A Venue Named After a Legend
Holding the national junior squash championship at an academy named after Jahangir Khan gives the event its weight. Jahangir won six World Open titles and a record ten British Open titles, and he went unbeaten for 555 matches in the 1980s, a run that remains one of the great records in world sport. For the juniors competing in Lahore, playing under his name is a reminder of the standard Pakistan once set, and of the road back to it. Read the PSA profile of Jahangir Khan.
Why Junior Events Like This Matter
The national junior squash championship is one of the main rungs on Pakistan’s squash ladder. It is where provincial and departmental programmes measure their coaching, where young players learn to handle finals-day pressure, and where the next generation of internationals first makes its name. Sohail Adnan’s path from junior titles to the British Junior Open shows how that ladder works when it works well.
The timing is good for the sport. Pakistan’s senior squash players have been in the news too, with the squash team winning Asian Games silver in Nagoya, and juniors have added their own headlines, including Pakistan’s win over India in the Asian squash championship. Days like this one in Lahore are where those senior results begin.
This year’s national junior squash championship also showed that the talent is spread widely. Sindh produced three of the four champions, Punjab produced the fourth, and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa supplied two beaten finalists. That spread matters, because a sport that draws from every province is a sport with a future.
For the four new champions, the hard part starts now. A junior title is a beginning, not a destination, and the step from junior success to senior squash is the toughest one in the sport. But at the national junior squash championship, Aban, Sohail, Farzan and Veshnavi each showed the composure and skill that step demands. Pakistan’s squash future looks bright.
Young athletes across Pakistan keep making their mark, from squash courts to eight-year-old Ayra Adil winning karate gold. The pipeline is alive, and Lahore just gave it four more names to watch.
Sources
- The Express Tribune: Aban, Sohail, Veshnavi win squash titles
- Geo Super: PCB Chairman congratulates Sohail Adnan for Squash championship win
- PSA Squash Tour: PSA50, Jahangir Khan, The Sultan Of Squash
Umar is an engineer by profession and a passionate writer by passion. He has a deep interest in sharing good news related to Pakistan and has been working hard to promote the positive image of his homeland. Umar has written numerous articles on various topics related to Pakistan, such as technology, sports, culture, and economy.