Thaindian News

Paderborn (Germany), Aug 26 (IANS) Former champions Australia saw off rising squash nation India, beating the sixth seeds 2-0 to enter the semifinals of the men’s World team championship here Thursday.

The fourth seeded Australians take on England, the No.1 ranked team, in the semifinals while the other tie pits Egypt (2) against France (3).

David Palmer recovered from a game down to beat India’s highest ranked player ever Saurav Ghosal 7-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-6 before Cameron Pilley beat Siddharth Suchde 11-9, 11-8, 11-4 to clinch victory for Australia.

Indian national coach Cyrus Poncha was pleased with his team’s performance.

“Overall, it’s a good show by our boys. Obviously, on world rankings, the Australian team was higher than ours but we gave a great fight.

“We’ve got a young team, with an average age of 22. So when you look at the big teams like Egypt, England, Australia and France, we should get the title in two years time!”

Byron Davis, the Australian team manager, said: “Saurav played a really good game and put David under pressure, but David fought hard to come back and win the match.

“To get that win was great - that put the pressure on them. Cameron then did what he needed to do and pulled us through. We are really glad to be in the semi-finals and look forward to playing England on the glass court.”

Palmer was delighted to be back in winning form.

“Saurav was very fast in the first game. I felt I had him under control, but he was getting everything back. It was midway through the second that we had some long rallies and I think that did some damage. I had a good start in the third and from then I think I was in control.”

“It was a good game of squash and I think I played better than yesterday which gave me a bit of confidence,” added the veteran Aussie who delighted home fans earlier this month by making the semi-finals of the Australian Open.

“It’s very obvious that England and Egypt have had the strongest teams recently, but with the same team that we have today, we beat Egypt four years ago in the semi-finals and England for third place in the last championship.

“We’ve met our criteria by getting to the semi-finals and with the women winning the title last year it means we’ve secured our funding, which is very important,” he said.

The results:
(4) Australia beat (6) India 2-0: David Palmer bt Saurav Ghosal 7-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-6 (51m); Cameron Pilley bt Siddharth Suchde 11-9, 11-8, 11-4 (50m); Stewart Boswell v Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu (Match withdrawn).