How it unfolded
The two men had already met once that spring. In the British Open final held March 30 to April 9, Geoff Hunt beat 17-year-old Jahangir Khan 9-2, 9-7, 5-9, 9-7 to take his eighth title, surpassing Hashim Khan's seven. When they met again at the World Open in Toronto, held November 19 to 28, the result flipped. Hunt took the first game 9-7, but managed only five points across the next three: 9-1, 9-2, 9-2. Hunt had dominated the sport, winning four of the first five World Opens in 1976, 1977, 1979 and 1980, and this was his first-ever World Open loss. Jahangir, at 17, remains to this day the youngest men's world champion in history. And that British Open loss that spring turned out to be the last defeat he would record for the next five years and seven months.
Why it still matters
A generational handover was completed in a single match. The stamina-driven era that Jonah Barrington had started and Hunt had perfected ended here, and the longest unbeaten run in the history of professional sport began almost immediately after. For the following decade, the story in men's squash wasn't who would win, it was who could take even a single game off Jahangir.