Noor Zaman beats defending champion Karim Abdel Gawad to reach Silicon Valley Open quarter-finals

Pakistan's Noor Zaman beat defending champion and world No 4 Karim Abdel Gawad of Egypt 3-1 to reach the quarter-finals of the PSA Gold Silicon Valley Open in Redwood City, California, Dawn reported. The 22-year-old from Peshawar won 11-9, 11-7, 9-11, 11-6 in 52 minutes on Wednesday (US time), which was early Thursday in Pakistan.

How the match went

Noor took the first two games against the second seed, lost the third 9-11, then closed it out 11-6 in the fourth. It is one of the biggest wins of his professional career: Gawad is a former world champion and came to California as the title holder.

"I was ready mentally and physically today, and I think now is the time for me to beat the top players," Noor said after the match.

In the first round he had come from a game down to beat American wildcard Bransten Ming 3-11, 11-5, 11-8, 11-9 in 41 minutes.

Who is Noor Zaman

• Age and home: 22, from Peshawar.
• Family: grandson of Qamar Zaman, the 1975 British Open champion and one of the great names of Pakistan's squash era.
• Record: 2025 under-23 world champion, with five PSA titles.
• Ranking: inside the world's top 35, and climbing.

The tournament

The Silicon Valley Open is a PSA World Tour Gold event with $143,500 in men's prize money (about Rs 3.97 crore), and equal prize money for the women's draw. Gold events carry heavy ranking points, so a quarter-final here should lift Noor further up the rankings when they are next published.

The second Pakistani in the men's draw, Mohammad Ashab Irfan, beat Hungary's Balazs Farkas 11-6, 11-4, 11-5 to reach the last 16, where he lost 3-0 to fifth seed Mohamed ElShorbagy of Egypt.

Why it matters

Pakistan once owned this sport: Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan between them won 14 world open titles. A generation later, Pakistan has had few players beating the top five. Squash makes its Olympic debut at Los Angeles 2028, and wins like this one are what get a player into contention for a place there.

Watching from Pakistan

Redwood City is 12 hours behind Pakistan, so an evening session in California is the next morning in Lahore or Karachi. PSA matches stream live on SquashTV, the tour's own service. Convert the prize money or anything else in dollars on our currency converter.