India storms into World Squash quarters

Dec 10:  India blanks Wales 3-0 in the pre-quarters to script a history of being the maiden entrants in the quarterfinals of the team’s event at the World squash championship

Hosts India blanked Wales 3-0 to storm into the quarter-finals, for the first time in the history, of the World men’s team squash championship at the ICL courts here on Sunday.

On the other hand, India’s Asian counterpart and arch-rivals Pakistan was shown the door by Netherlands as Pakistanis went down 1-2 against the Dutch rivals and could not be able to finish off among top eight in the championship.

Tenth seed India will now have to fight it out with the top seed Egypt to make it into the semis but there is also a fact that this will be first instance for India to finish ahead of Pakistan in the championship, which dominated this sport for many years.

India had a terrific start that set the tone for the team in the pre-quarters as Ritwik Bhattacharya convincingly defeated David Evans 3-0 (11-6, 13-11, 11-7) in the opening match.

Saurav Ghosal fought back hard, after narrowly losing the first game on extra points 10-11 (1-3) against Alex Gough, to win the next two games. Injured Gough, who struggled due to his hamstring problem, conceded the match 11-10, 7-11, 3-11 in Ghosal’s favour.

With the match already in India’s pocket, Siddarth Suchde swept the third to make it 3-0 for India and also an all win affair after sealing his own singles event.

“I have never seen Ritwik play so beautifully,” said pleasing Maj. S. Maniam, the Indian team manager.

RESULTS

India bt Wales 3-0: Ritwik Bhattacharya bt David Evans 11-6, 13-11, 11-7, Saurav Ghoshal bt Alex Gough 12-14, 11-7, 11-3 and Siddharth Suchde bt Jethro Binns 11-8, 11-7, 11-2.

OTHER PRE-QUARTER RESULTS: England bt Germany 3-0, Netherlands bt Pakistan 2-1, Malaysia bt Ireland 2-1, Canada bt South Africa 2-1, France bt New Zealand 3-0, Egypt bt Hong Kong 3-0 and Australia bt US 3-0.

QUARTER-FINAL LINE-UP

[1] EGYPT v [10] INDIA

[4] AUSTRALIA v [6] CANADA

[3] FRANCE v [5] MALAYSIA

[2] ENGLAND v [8] NETHERLANDS