Egypt retain World junior squash title; Indian girls third
August 8th, 2009 - 8:02 pm ICT by IANSChennai, Aug 8 (IANS) Second-seeded India overcame the US 2-1 to finish third here Saturday, their best-ever performance in the girls team event at the World junior squash championship, while Egypt retained the title with a commanding 2-0 win over Hong Kong China in the final.
The third place finish bettered the fourth in 2003 when India lost to England in the play-offs in Cairo, but it was touch-and-go for the Indians against fifth seeded US, who nearly pulled off a coup.
India’s top junior Dipika Pallikal expectedly won her first singles against Oliva Blatchford, but Surbhi Misra went down to Amanda Sobhy in the next match to tie the score at 1-1.
In the deciding third singles, Anaka Alankamony began shakily against Julie Cerullo by losing the first game before recovering to win the next two for a 2-1 advantage.
Cerullo fought back splendidly to take the fourth game to push the match into the decider. Anaka looked well on way to victory when she led 8-3, but the American clawed her way back to 8-all before the Indian took two more points for match-ball.
Amidst mounting excitement, Anaka drifted the ball into the back corner and when the referee declared a “no-let”, it was all over with India coming through to cap a fine performance that somewhat made up for their shock defeat to Hong Kong China in the semi-finals Friday.
Top seeds Egypt had few problems against sixth-seeded Hong Kong, the surprise finalists, who seemed to have run out of steam after their stirring show against India Friday.
Egypt were off to a flier when Heba El Torky took the opening singles easily despite dropping the second game. They then sealed the issue when 13-year old world champion Nour El Sherbini chalked up a fluent 3-0 win over Tsz Wing Tong and the inconsequential third singles was not played.
Results:
Final: 1-Egypt beat 6-Hong Kong China 2-0 (Heba El Torky beat Tsz Ling Liu 11-6, 2-11, 11-5, 11-6; Nour El Sherbini beat Tsz Wing Tong 11-8, 11-6, 11-6; third singles not played).
For 3-4 positions: 2-India beat 5-USA 2-1 (Dipika Pallikal beat Olivia Blatchford 11-6, 11-7, 11-5; Surbhi Misra lost to Amanda Sobhy 3-11, 6-11, 12-10, 4-11; Anaka Alankamony beat Julie Cerullo 3-11, 11-5, 11-8, 10-12, 11-8).
Other Classification: Canada beat England 2-0 (for 5-6 positions); Malaysia beat New Zealand 2-0 (for 7-8); France beat Germany 2-0 (for 9-10); Australia beat South Africa (for 11-12); The Netherlands beat Denmark (for 13-14); Sweden beat Spain (for 15-16).
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Tags: blatchford, cerullo, dipika pallikal, first game, flier, girls team, hong kong china, indian girls, junior squash, match ball, misra, nour, oliva, play offs, second game, semi finals, shock defeat, surbhi, torky, world champion