World Junior Squash Championships: Indians crash out in the individual phase

Harshit Kaur Jawanda lost to America’s Reeham Sedky in straight games

After the bright start, woes struck the Indians as one player after the other fell on a disappointing day’s show in the WSF World junior squash championship in Eindhoven on Monday.

Barely had the first round success in the individual phase of the competition sunk in when trouble began as the competition progressed. Only Harshit Jawanda and Velavan Senthilkumar could get past the second round where the other nine Indians crashed out.

However even that little relief was shortlived as Harshit facing American Reeham Sedky could not stand up to the latter’s power-packed stroke play. Driving with tremendous power, Reeham quickly had the measure of the Indian junior champion.

The whole focus then was on Velavan . The ISA trainee had an impressive second round when he stopped the South African Justin Wesson in straight games. The left hander thereafter played his heart out against the 9/12 seeded Mohammed Al Sarraj of Jordan in the next round, but could only push the contest to five games before losing the battle with cramps affecting his hands. Trailing by a game and 5-5 in the decider, Velavan began to show discomfort and the fight in him ebbed out.

The results:

Boys: Third round: Mohammed Al Sarraj (Jordan) bt Velavan Senthilkumar 5-11, 11-4, 11-8, 11-13, 11-5;

(second round)

Luke Jones (NZ) bt Aishwary Singh 11-8, 11-8, 11-7;

Velavan Senthilkumar bt Justin Wesson (S. Africa) 16-14, 11-3, 11-4;

Patrick Rooney (Eng) bt Adhitya Raghavan 11-5, 11-7, 11-5;

Ryunosuke Tsukue (Jpn) bt Sandeep Ramachandran 9-11, 11-6, 9-11, 13-11, 11-2;

Benjamin Aubert (France) bt Vikas Mehra 11-4, 9-11, 11-2, 11-9.

Girls: Third round: Reeham Sedky (USA) bt Harshit Jawanda 11-5, 11-3, 11-6;

(second round) Ka Wing Ho (HongKong) bt Adya Advani 11-6, 11-8, 11-0;

Laura Tover (Colombia) bt Sunayna Kuruvilla 11-2, 9-11, 11-3, 11-5;

Hania El Hammamy (Egypt) bt Jui Kalgutkar 11-0, 11-4, 11-6;

Harshit Jawanda bt Nadia Hubbard (NZ) 11-8, 11-1, 11-7;

Choi Uen Shan (Hong Kong) bt Akanksha Salunkhe 11-4, 9-11, 11-2, 11-6;

Nazihah Hanis Abdul (Malaysia) bt Nikita Joshi 11-9, 11-8, 11-7