JSW Indian Squash Circuit: Harinder Pal Sandhu through to the semis; Kush Kumar falters

Harinder Pal Sandhu in action(Phto Courtesy: Nitesh Square Photography/JSW Indian Squash Circuit)

Top seed Harinder Pal Sandhu of India started very strong and solid on the All glass court at the ISA Academy. Mohd Syafiq Kamal - one of the bright young talents emerging from Malaysia found his feet and slowly got back ahead of Harinder on the court to make it 4-4.

Both players traded points and with Harinder making two unforced Errors Syafiq took the lead for the first time 8-6 Two more tight points by the Malaysian gave him his first game ball at 10-7 and closed out the 1st game 11-8.The 2nd game saw the Indian come out much stronger and work Mohd to the back hitting tight dying length to go up 8-3. Mohd hit 3 brilliant winners to stage a mini comeback at 6-9 but a beautiful reverse trickle boast and a straight drop allowed Harinder to level the gamesThe 3rd game was the same as the 2nd game with Harry playing some beautiful tight shots and controlling the Centre of the court

At 10-4 gameball Syafik found his game and hit 3 wonderful back hand drives sticking to the b/h glass wall to close in at 8-10 before Harry hit his trade mark cross court nick to take a 2-1 lead

In the 4th Harinder kept the pressure and forced some uncharacteristic errors from from Syafik to take the lead 3-1 and 5-2 and managed to keep his lead 7-9.Syafik wasn't done and two delicate drops levelled scores at 9-9

Harinder kept the pressure up and forced two errors to win the game 11-9 and book a place in the semis.

Kush Kumar loses

Kush Kumar squandered his leads 5-1 in the first and 5-2 in the third game to bow out in the quarterfinals. Mohd Reda was the steadier of the two clawing his way back twice with effective drops on his backhand. Kush levelled the match in the second game with his aggressive play. Reda showing his resilience won the third and did not give Kush any chance to win the fourth game convincingly.

Reda: "Really nice match. Kush played really well. Specially first couple of games. Also in the beginning of the third. It put some pressure on me. But I manage to play my game and then make it little bit longer and make it more tight. And by the fourth game I got into his mental game. I had a good start. So happy to win. "