Qamar Zaman

Qamar Zaman was born on April 11, 1952 in Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province in western Pakistan ^[1]. He grew up in a country where squash already carried enormous prestige. Hashim Khan had won the British Open in 1951, the year before Zaman's birth, and the Khan family's run of titles through the 1950s and early 1960s made the sport a source of national pride and a realistic career for talented boys from modest backgrounds ^[2].

Like many Pakistani champions of his generation, Zaman learned the game young and learned it on court rather than in a classroom. Pakistani squash of that period was built around club and services courts, where boys often started as ball boys or markers and absorbed the game by watching and imitating older players ^[2]. Zaman came up through this environment, developing the soft hands and improvisational instincts that later defined his style. By his late teens he was competing in domestic events and drawing attention as one of the most naturally gifted prospects in the country ^[3].

Zaman emerged on the international circuit in the early 1970s, part of a wave of Pakistani players that included Mohibullah Khan, Gogi Alauddin, and Hiddy Jahan ^[2]. The professional game at the time was dominated by two poles: the relentless Australian champion Geoff Hunt and the deep Pakistani contingent trying to reclaim the supremacy the Khans had once held. Zaman quickly established himself inside that elite group, reaching the later rounds of major tournaments and beating established names ^[3].

His breakthrough came at the 1975 British Open at Wembley, then regarded as the world championship of squash in all but name. Jonah Barrington, the eight-time expected contender, and Hunt were the headline names, but Zaman came through the draw and defeated his compatriot Gogi Alauddin in the final to take the title ^[1]. He was 22 years old, and the win made him a celebrity in Pakistan and a fixture at the top of the sport ^[3].

What set Zaman apart, and what anyone asking who was Qamar Zaman should understand first, was not his fitness or his power but his racket work. Contemporaries and squash writers described him as perhaps the finest exponent of deception the game had seen: holds, flicks, disguised drops, and sudden changes of pace that left opponents moving the wrong way ^[4]. He played with visible enjoyment, sometimes grinning at his own errors or applauding an opponent's winner, and crowds responded to him in a way they rarely did to more methodical champions ^[4].

The 1975 British Open remained the biggest single title of Zaman's career, but the list of Qamar Zaman achievements runs far wider. He won the Pakistan Open multiple times and collected professional titles across Europe, Australia, and Asia during more than a decade at the top of the international game ^[3]. For a period in the mid 1970s he was ranked the world's number one player, and he stayed inside the top handful of players well into the 1980s ^[3].

His record in world championship finals tells the story of both his quality and his misfortune. Zaman reached the final of the World Open four times without winning it. Geoff Hunt beat him in the inaugural 1976 final in London, and again in the finals of 1979 and 1980, matches remembered as collisions between Hunt's punishing physical game and Zaman's touch and trickery ^[5]. His last final came in 1984, when the young Jahangir Khan, then in the middle of his unbeaten streak, defeated him in Karachi ^[5]. Four final defeats left Zaman with the unusual distinction of being widely considered one of the greatest players never to win the World Open ^[4].

He was also central to Pakistan's team success. Zaman featured in Pakistan sides that contested the World Team Championships through the late 1970s and 1980s, part of the squad structure that kept Pakistan at or near the top of the team event during that era ^[6]. The government of Pakistan recognized his services to the sport with the Pride of Performance award, one of the country's principal civil honours for achievement in arts and sport ^[3].

Squash in the late 1970s produced one of the sport's defining stylistic contrasts: Hunt against Zaman. Hunt trained like a middle distance runner and wore opponents down through length and pace. Zaman, by his own cheerful admission, trained less and gambled more, relying on anticipation and an enormous repertoire of shots ^[4]. Their meetings in British Open and World Open finals drew large crowds precisely because the two approaches were so different, and the results usually went Hunt's way in the longest matches, where Zaman's economy of effort could not fully offset the Australian's conditioning ^[5].

Within Pakistan, Zaman's rivalries were friendlier but no less consequential. He, Mohibullah Khan, Gogi Alauddin, and Hiddy Jahan formed a quartet that squash writers of the period treated as a golden generation, each capable of beating the others on a given day ^[2]. Later, Zaman became one of the measuring sticks for the rise of Jahangir Khan, who passed him in the rankings in the early 1980s. Zaman continued to compete at a high level against the younger man, and their 1984 World Open final in Karachi marked a symbolic handover between generations of Pakistani squash ^[5].

Judges of the game consistently placed Zaman among its great entertainers. James Zug, in his history of squash, describes the flair and wristy invention of the Pakistani school of that era, of which Zaman was the outstanding example ^[2]. Even opponents who beat him acknowledged that no one in the game struck the ball with more imagination ^[4].

Zaman kept playing top level squash longer than most of his contemporaries, remaining competitive on the professional circuit into the second half of the 1980s before gradually winding down his tournament schedule ^[3]. After retiring from full time competition he moved into coaching and squash administration in Pakistan, working with national training programmes and serving in official roles within the Pakistan squash establishment ^[6].

He settled in Peshawar, the traditional heartland of Pakistani squash, and became a familiar mentor figure at the courts where successive generations of players trained ^[6]. Pakistani newspapers have regularly sought his views on the decline of the country's squash fortunes since the retirements of Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan, and he has been a persistent public advocate for better facilities, coaching structures, and international exposure for young Pakistani players ^[7]. Squash stayed in the family as well: his son Zarak Jahan Khan competed on the professional tour and later worked as a coach ^[7].

Zaman's place in squash history rests on two things: a major title record that puts him among the leading players of his generation, and a style that made him one of the most watchable athletes the sport has known. The basic Qamar Zaman facts, a British Open crown, four World Open finals, years at the top of the rankings, would secure his reputation on their own ^[3]. The affection he still commands owes at least as much to how he played: the disguised drop shots, the theatrical holds, and the sense that the game was being performed as well as contested ^[4].

Within Pakistan he is remembered as the bridge between two dynasties, the man who kept the country at the summit of world squash between the fading of the original Khan era and the arrival of Jahangir Khan ^[2]. Coaches and commentators still cite him when discussing the classical Pakistani school of racket skill, and his post playing work in coaching and administration tied him to the sport's development long after his last major final ^[6]. Nearly half a century after his Wembley triumph, Zaman remains a standard reference point whenever squash people talk about deception, touch, and joy on court ^[4].