The Hindu : Sport : Parthiban downs Marton Szaboky

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 23, 2005

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Parthiban downs Marton Szaboky

S.R. Suryanarayan

CHENNAI: They call him `road runner' in the TNSRA-SDAT Academy for his stamina.

Ayappan Parthiban also knows how to keep the ball in play as he rallied from two games in arrears to carve out a superb win over Marton Szaboky of Hungary in a pre-quarterfinal match of the ICL-Chennai Open squash here on Wednesday.

The Chennai lad's display made National coach Cyrus Poncha proud. The youngster, after failing to grab two close opening games that went to tie-breaker, bounced back in the next three.

The Hungarian had calculated a quick finish but found himself knocking against a wall, the ball remaining in play in a seemingly never-ending rally. Parthiban relished the challenge but Marton faltered. Soon the leader succumbed to pressure giving the Indian, who had come into the main draw as a qualifier a famous win. For Saurav Ghosal and Ritwik Bhattacharya it was an easy day. Ritwik in particular gave a false sense of hope for Sandeep Jangra when he trailed 2-9 in the opener. But there was unexpected struggle for top seed Kashif Shuja, representing New Zealand. Against the Korean Kim Sung Young, the former Pakistan junior champion found himself stretched to the limits.

The results (pre-quarterfinals): Mark Krajcsak (Hung) bt Abdullah Al Mezayen (Kuw) 11-9, 11-6, 7-11, 11-8; Saurav Ghosal (Ind) bt Nasser Ramzi (Kuw) 11-7, 11-7, 11-4; A Parthiban (Ind) bt Marton Szaboky (Hung) 10-11, 10-11, 11-5, 11-6, 11-5; Ritwik Bhattacharya (Ind) bt Sandeep Jangra (Ind) 11-10, 11-4 11-4; Kashif Shuja (Nz) bt Kim Sung Young (Kor) 11-9, 12-10, 19-17; Timothy Arnold (Mal) btR Ryan Thompson (Namib) 11-5, 11-8, 11-8. Siddarth Sachdev (Ind) bt Paul Davis (Aus) 11-2, 11-7, 11-5; Dylan Bennett (Ned) bt Harinderpal Singh (Ind) 11-4, 11-8, 11-10.

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