The Hindu : Sport : India makes it to the top eight

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jul 26, 2006

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Sport - Sports : General

India makes it to the top eight

CHENNAI: India chalked out a creditable 2-1 win over South Africa in a pre-quarterfinal pool stage to make the top eight for the third consecutive time in the World junior squash championship.

At Palmerston North in New Zealand on Tuesday, Sandeep Jangra and Harinderpal Singh emulated Saurav Ghosal and Siddarth Suchde's show on the previous occasion. It was a nail-biting show all the way.

India's top junior Sandeep Jangra set the tone when he outclassed Richard Corburn in straight games in 35 minutes. Sandeep's effort was all the more creditable as he was down 0-4 in the first game before coming back strongly to win by hitting volley winners in the front court. Sandeep did not look back from there.

Naresh Kumar then seemed to pick up from where Sandeep left, playing an amazing first game against Rudi Willemse. However, Rudi fought back by intercepting all his shots and choked out Naresh in the next three games to make it 1-1.

Harinder delivers

The onus was on Harinder and the young man from the ICL Academy played his heart out to beat Jason Cole Niven and give India a vital win. Harinder played the longest match of the tie. The Chennai lad was forced to keep the ball deep as he made a few unforced errors with his drop. Harinder's best came in the fourth game when down 0-5, and the match looked set for a deciding fifth game. However, the Indian worked his length and came up with two brilliant backhand drops to level the score at 5-5. From there he was on fire and cantered to victory.

India plays Pakistan next in its final pool match.

The results: India bt South Africa 2-1 (Sandeep Jangra bt Richard Colburn 9-7, 9-5, 9-2; Naresh Kumar lost to Rudi Willemse 9-5, 1-9, 5-9, 4-9; Harinderpal Singh bt Jason Cole Niven 9-3, 7-9, 9-5, 9-7).

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