Pakistan Capture World Junior Team Championships Title

#PSAWorldTour

Pakistan ended a run of three straight final defeats to Egypt in the Men’s World Junior Team Championships in Bielsko-Biala, Poland to lift their first title since 2008 and a record-equalling fifth crown overall.

After boasting some of the greatest players in the sport’s history throughout the 80s and 90s, including the likes of Jahangir and Jansher Khan, Pakistan returned to the summit of the junior game with three World Junior Team Championship titles between 2002 and 2008.

Since then, Pakistan had suffered three successive final defeats to Egypt and came up against them yet again in the final of the 2016 instalment after wins over USA and England, respectively in the semi-final stage.

Pakistan went ahead early on after World No.128 Israr Ahmed dispatched World Junior Individual Championship finalist Saadeldin Abouaish, but Youssef Ibrahim Abdallah levelled the scores for Egypt, beating Ahsan Ayaz 3-1.

In the decider, 16-year-old Egyptian Marwan Tarek Abdelhamid took a brief lead in the first game against Abbas Shoukat, however the latter fought back impressively, taking three games without reply to reclaim the title for Pakistan.

Meanwhile, England returned to the top four after missing out two years ago for the first time since 1980, and they share third place with USA.

France beat India in the fifth place play-off to claim their best finish in 16 years, while five-time winners Australia beat New Zealand into seventh – recording their best placing since 2002.

Seventh seeds Malaysia had a disappointing tournament, however. Despite having World Junior Individual Championships winner Eain Yow Ng amongst their ranks, the 2014 semi-finalists slumped to 13th place, their lowest finish in over 30 years.

Results – Men’s World Junior Team Championships 2016

Final

[2] PAKISTAN 2-1 [1] EGYPT
Israr Ahmed bt Saadeldin Abouaish 11-9, 11-9, 11-9 (39m)
Ahsan Ayaz lost to Youssef Ibrahim Abdallah 11-13, 13-11, 5-11, 6-11 (47m)
Abbas Shoukat bt Marwan Tarek Abdelhamid 11-7, 11-9, 11-8 (37m)

3rd place:

[5] ENGLAND & [6] USA

5th place play-off:

[3] FRANCE 2-1 [4] INDIA
Victor Crouin bt Velavan Senthilkumar 9-11, 11-6, 13-11, 6-11, 11-5
Sébastien Bonmalais bt Abhay Singh 11-4, 11-8, 10-12, 11-4
Rohan Mandil lost to Adithya Raghavan 3-11, 7-11

7th place play-off:

[10] AUSTRALIA 2-1 [9] NEW ZEALAND
Alex Eustace bt Jamie Oakley 13-11, 11-6, 5-11, 11-4
Joseph White lost to Scott Galloway 9-11, 4-11, 2-11
William Curtis bt Sam Sayes 11-5, 3-11, 11-6, 11-7

9th place play-off:

[11] HONG KONG CHINA 2-1 [12] JORDAN
Ng Ka Yiu lost to Mohammad Al Sarraj 5-11, 6-11, 11-8, 2-11
Lai Cheuk Nam Matthew bt Hamza Alzubaidi 11-8, 9-11, 10-12, 11-9, 11-6
Harley Lam bt Abedalkader Jeitan 8-11, 11-5, 11-7, 9-11, 11-3

11th place play-off:

[8] CANADA 2-1 [17] SOUTH AFRICA
Michael Mehl bt Richard-John Kuhn 11-7, 11-7, 11-2
Matthew Henderson lost to Callan Mackenzie Hall 4-11, 14-16, 7-11
Ravi Seth bt Adam Shean 10-12, 11-9, 12-14, 11-1, 11-9

13th place play-off:

[7] MALAYSIA 3-0 [14] SWITZERLAND
Eain Yow Ng bt Christoph Zust 11-4, 11-5, 11-6
Ong Sai Hung bt Luca Zatti 11-4, 11-4, 11-4
Marcus Sim Wei Jie bt Yannick Wilhelmi 12-10, 11-9

15th place play-off:

[19] SPAIN 2-1 [16] ISRAEL
Nilo Vidal lost to Nadav Raziel 5-11, 6-11, 8-11
Sergio Garcia Pollan bt Ido Burstein 11-9, 11-5, 8-11, 11-5
Enrique Garcia bt Nadav Mizrachi 11-1, 11-1, 11-8

17th place play-off:

[15] GERMANY bt [13] GUATEMALA w/o

19th place play-off:

[18] ARGENTINA bt [21] POLAND w/o

21st place play-off:

[20] ZIMBABWE (bye)