India's young Squash talents to fight for world titles at Doha

Pepped up by their medal winning performance in the Asian championships in Iran, young Indian squash talents, comprising of six junior boys and five junior girls, will be vying for honours in the World Junior Squash Championships to be held at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex in Doha, Qatar from July 7 to 18 .

Players from 29 countries will initially battle in the individual championships from July 7 to 12. This will be followed the biennial Men’s World Junior Team Championship. India coach Cyrus Poncha said Double Asian Junior Champion Anaka Alankamony and Junior National Champion Mahesh Mangaonkar will be the cynosure of Indian challengers and have been seeded 5/8 in the individual event. But the Egyptian’s Marwan El Shorbagy and Nour El Sherbini, who had exhibited their skills in the Indian Squash Academy in Chennai that hosted this event before in India, being given the top billing, are expected to hog the limelight.

Mahesh Mangaonkar will lead India’s junior men in the team Championship and will hope to better the previous performance of fifth position they had achieved in Ecuador in 2010. But Cyrus was not over optimistic as it were. He observed that as there would be many new talents on view this time, it would be a bit premature to guess the performance of Indian players. The Indian team members are scheduled to leave for Qatar tomorrow.