New Delhi: It turned out to be a disappointing outing for Indian racqueters at the Punj Lloyd PSA Masters 2010 squash event as they lost all their respective opening round matches to bow out of the championship at the Siri Fort Sports Complex, here on Tuesday.
Much was expected of wild card entrant Harinder Pal Sandhu, qualifiers Sandeep Jangra and Siddharth Suchde but the trio failed to impress, at the star-studded field led by newly-crowned world champion Nick Matthew and James Willstrop of England and living legend Amr Shabana of Egypt.
16th seed and country's top-ranked player, Saurav Ghosal, has now been left with the daunting task of carrying the tri-colour further in the USD 1,92,500 event, the tenth and final event of the 2010 PSA Super Series.
Ghosal will play English qualifier Adrian Weller on Wednesday in the opening round of the other half of the main draw at the centre court, but his chances of advancing further into the championship looks extremely difficult as he would be facing third seed and world ranked sixth Shabana in the pre-quarterfinals.
All other top seed men's players including second seed James Willstrop, sixth seed Egypt's Wael El Hindi, 10th seed Australian Cameron Pilley and seventh seed The Netherlands's Laurens Jan Anjema advanced to the pre-quarters of the five-day-long event, winning their respective matches.
Meanwhile, in the first match of the day involving Suchde and Hindi, the Indian gave a glimpse of his fighting abilities.
Though the Indian lost 10-12 5-11 7-11 in straight games in 27 minutes, the famed Australian later admitted that he more than once lost his way against the never-say-die Suchde.
In the first game, Suchde was leading Hindi 4-1 and 10-8 before conceding the game 10-12 owing to a slight error of judgement in the end moments.
In the second and third, Hindi maintained the lead throughout and never gave his world ranked 94th opponent a chance to claw his way back.
In the match involving Jangra and Pilley, the unseeded Indian failed to display his famed footwork and was reduced to a mere spectator by the Australian.
Jangra lost 2-11 2-11 7-11 at the centre court, much to the disappointment of the locals present in the venue.
In the evening session, unseeded Sandhu locked horns with 12th seed Egyptian Omar Mossad and lost 8-11 10-12 10-12 in 40 about minutes.
Mossad dominated from the start and produced a flurry of delightful winners with deft touch to the front, but Sandhu kept in the first game open with his unerring ability to dominate the court and finish points with his speed.
Both showed great accuracy in the next two games and there were moments when Sandhu looked to edge past his more fancied rival. But in the end, his efforts proved short of scripting an upset.
The Egyptian's tall-built and his physical dominance put paid to Sandhu's hope.
In the match involving last week's World Open runner-up Willstrop and Egypt's unseeded Mohd Ali Anwar Reda, the former was pushed to the wall before winning 11-13 11-5 11-2 11-9 in 56 minutes.
The 6 feet 4 inch Yorkshireman Willstrop accepted after the match that he had never expected such a strong fight from the unseeded rival in the opening round.
"It has been a tense week for me playing here just after the gruelling World Open championship in Saudi Arabia. I was not expecting such a tough match. Not the pleasant match as I had expected... you can call it quite taxing in the end. I am mentally quite exhausted after weeks and weeks of playing," said Willstrop.
In the other matches of the afternoon session, Anjema of The Netherlands defeated Malaysia's Kamran Khan 11-7 11-4 11-5 while 15th seed Hisham Mohd Ashour of Egypt ended the challenge of England's Chris Simpson 11-7 11-6 11-6.
Comments
0 comment