How it unfolded
The 1951 British Open ran from March 30 to April 9 at London's Lansdowne Club, and the third seed was a name nobody in the field really knew. Hashim Khan, a court professional from Nawakille near Peshawar, had taught himself the game while working as a ball boy on British Army courts, and this was his first trip to England. Even his exact birth year was disputed, somewhere between 1914 and 1916, putting him around 35. His opponent in the final was Egypt's Mahmoud Karim, champion four seasons running since 1947 and the sport's dominant force at the time. Hashim took the first game 9-5, then didn't concede a single point across the next two: 9-0, 9-0. Under the English scoring system in use at the time, only the server could score, so this line means Karim effectively never got the serve back. Hashim would go on to collect seven British Open titles through 1958, and soon brought over his brother Azam Khan, cousin Roshan Khan and nephew Mohibullah Khan.
Why it still matters
This single match moved squash's center of gravity from the British amateur and Egyptian diplomatic classes to one village in northwest Pakistan. Over the following 40 years, Pakistani players won 30 men's British Open titles, and the entire Jahangir-to-Jansher lineage ran through the pathway Hashim built. It was also the moment a court professional replaced the amateur champion at the top of this sport.