The remarkable career of Jahangir Khan, the greatest squash player of them all

In 1963, a boy named Jahangir Khan was born in a rough neighbourhood in Karachi, a city in Pakistan.

A short and weak kid, Khan would play games by himself, shoeless in the dark. But these games were clearly meaningful; after a lot of practice, he was on the path to sporting success.

This is the story of squash legend, Jahangir Khan, and his illustrious career.

King Khan - from humble beginnings…

Khan’s story is the rags-to-riches cliché; the rise of Jahangir Khan is outstanding.

He is a legend, recognised by a significant amount of squash fans as the greatest player in the sport’s history.

Khan set the bar very high - only a few could even knock on the door to his successes As a result of his sheer dominance, Khan was nicknamed as “The Conqueror”.

Jahangir Khan lunges for a ball… and likely made it!

Jahangir Khan as an amateur

He started playing Amateur squash at the age of 15; Khan was so innately talented right from the beginning, he won Youngest World Amateur Champion.

Through courage, determination and willpower, Khan overcame personal tragedy - when Jahangir was an amateur squash player, his older brother Torsam Khan, who was also a squash player, was playing a match in Australia and passed away from a heart attack, despite the 27-year-old in a seemingly healthy condition.

This trauma lit a fuse with Jahangir. A fuse that gave him the passion and aggression to beat the World No. 1 Geoff Hunt.

Khan even became the youngest winner of the World Open at the mere age of 17. This victory marked the start of his now legendary unbeaten run.

The Professional Years

A year after his World open championship glory, Khan astounded his fans when he won the final of the International Squash Players Association (ISPA) Championship without dropping a point.

Khan kept a clean professional record as he was unbeaten in 555 consecutive matches over 5 years and 8 months.

This was deemed as the longest winning streak of any sportsman ever. At that same time, he won the British Open 10 times between 1982-1993 and was a six-time World Champion.

The Happy End of Khan’s Career

Khan's unbeaten professional run eventually came to an end at the final of the 1986 World Open in France when he lost to Ross Norman of New Zealand.

Norman was chasing Jahangir’s unbeaten streak for a while - he said: “One day Jahangir will be slightly off his game and I will beat him”.

Khan retired from the Men’s Professional World Tour in 1993 and became the emeritus president of the World Squash Federation (WSF) from 2002 to 2008.

Speaking about his triumphant run of 555 consecutive matches, Jahangir said: “It wasn’t my plan to create such a record. All I did was put in the effort to win every match I played and it went on for weeks, months, and years until my defeat to Ross Norman in Toulouse in 1986.”

Throughout his record-breaking career, Jahangir Khan epitomised excellence, and not only on the court, he was considered a great person off it as well.