The Hindu : Sport / Squash : India stuns France to enter semifinals

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 07, 2008
ePaper | Mobile/PDA Version

Sport

Sport - Squash

India stuns France to enter semifinals

CHENNAI: India has assured itself of a historic finish in the World junior men’s squash championship, being held in Zurich, by making its maiden entry into the semifinals on Tuesday.

India’s previous best was the fifth position achieved in 2002 with Saurav Ghosal, Siddharth Suchde, Gaurav Nandrajog and Sahil Vora in the side.

At the Vitis Squash Club, the fifth-seeded Indian team stunned fourth seed France 2-1 to set up a meeting with a second-seeded strong Pakistan team.

It was a match that went down to the wire as the trio of Vikram Malhotra, Aditya Jagtap and Ravi Dixit battled it out to snatch a fine win.

Ramachandran’s praise

The Secretary-General of SRFI, N. Ramachandran has congratulated the team for its fine show. “It is truly exciting to reach the top four in a World Championship and is definitely praiseworthy.

“I congratulate the team and the coaches for having performed extremely well. The boys have given an excellent tribute to the ICL Squash Academy.”

First on court was the flamboyant Vikram. Facing a higher ranked opponent in Gregoire Marche, he needed to be more than swift. Though Vikram came up with a series of winners to win the first game 9-1 in quick time, he could not sustain the tempo. In the second game, Vikram ran up a 4-0 lead but Gregoire turned things around with his steadier approach to win the encounter.

Much depended on Aditya Jagtap to keep India’s hopes alive. From the outset, a confident Aditya chose to play aggressively to give his opponent little chance to settle. He levelled the match with a straight games win.

In the decider, Ravi Dixit started nervously against Antoine-Camille Petrucci and was soon 0-2 down in game score and trailed 2-5 down in the third game. The Indian then changed gears for a remarkable comeback. His retrieving was already good but he began to attack intelligently to push Petrucci on to the backfoot and gained ground to leave his opponent in despair.

A dejected Petrucci failed to keep up the pace and succumbed.

Apart from Vikram, who turns 19 this year, the other three boys are eligible to participate in the next championship, two years from now.

The results:

Quarterfinals: India bt France 2-1 (Vikram Malhotra lost to Gregoire Marche 9-1, 4-9, 0-9, 1-9; Aditya Jagtap bt Lucas Vauzelle 9-6, 9-2, 9-5; Ravi Dixit bt Petrucci Antoine Camille 8-10, 2-9, 9-7, 9-1, 9-2).

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport