Google Doodle celebrates squash champion Hashim Khan

Google honoured late squash champion Hashim Khan with his very own animated Google Doodle on April 4, which marks the day Khan won the British Open Squash Championships in 1951, propelling him from relative obscurity to international icon.

Khan was born near Peshawar, where his father worked at a British officers' club and often brought him along. Khan worked as a ball boy at the club's squash courts and would practice after the officers finished playing, barefoot on brick courts.

The doodle shows Khan hitting every shot on the squash court at various stages of his life.

By age 28 he was a pro at the sport, winning three All-of-India titles from 1944 to 1946. After Partition, he was drafted to represent Pakistan at the 1951 British Open. He dominated the championship to win the grand prize and did so every year for the the next five years.

He won his seventh and final British Open title in 1958 after finishing as a runner-up in 1957. Khan also won five British Professional Championship titles, three US Open titles and three Canadian Open titles over the course of his career.

He was also the first of the Khan family to dominate squash; over the course of 46 years, the British was won 29 times by either Khan or one of his relatives, including renowned players Jahangir Khan and Jansher Khan.

Khan eventually relocated to the United States in the 1960s, where he was invited as a squash coach. He passed away in August 2014, aged 100.

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