Zurich, July 29 (IANS) Vikram Malhotra cruised to the round of 32 after defeating young Fahad B. Al-Ramezy from Kuwait and Joshua Larkin from Australia in straight games at the junior men’s World Cup squash here. Vikram beat Fahad 9-0, 9-2, 9-1 and will face Petrucci Camille of France next.

Aditya Jagtap, too, joined Vikram in the round of 32 but had to dig deep to overcome a determined Frederick Reid from Canada, who used his volleys and drops to telling effect against the lanky Indian.

It was Aditya’s sheer guts and great tactical play that saw him go through to the next round after 52 minutes. Earlier in the morning Monday, Aditya had another good win defeating Jo Wen from Malaysia in a hard fought four games.

Meanwhile, Karan Malik put up a brave fight but lost to Jo Lee of England.

Abhishek Pradhan, too, gave a sterling performance as he went down fighting to Australian Joshua Larkin in a hard five-setter.

Abhishek had match ball in the 3rd by scuttling and scurrying around the court and picked up all the balls thrown by Joshua. As the match went longer, Abhishek lost his rhythm and Joshua often caught him on the wrong foot.

Ravi Dixit, Paramjit Singh and Mahesh Mangaonkar won their morning matches in straight games but were unable to win their evening matches against higher ranked opponents.

Main Draw Round 3:
Vikram Malhotra [IND] bt Fahad B. Al-Ramezy [KUW] 9-0 9-2 9-1; Ravi Dixit [IND] bt Felipe Bueno Almeida [ECU] 9-0 9-1 9-0; Paramit Singh [IND] bt Fausto Gomez [ESP] 9-2 9-7 9-1; Aditya Jagtap [IND] bt Jo Wen Ng [MAS] 9-4 9-5 2-9 9-4; Mahesh Mangaonkar [IND] bt Dimitri Diamadopoulos [ITA] 9-0 9-3 9-1; Joe Lee [5/8] [ENG] bt Karan Malik[IND] 9-0 9-6 9-0; Joshua Larkin [AUS] bt Abishek Pradhan [IND] 4-9 4-9 10-8 9-1 9-1.

Main Draw Round 4
Aditya Jagtap [17/32] [IND] bt Frederick Reid [CAN] 9-0 9-4 7-9 10-8; Vikram Malhotra [9/16] [IND] bt Joshua Larkin [AUS] 9-4 9-3 9-6; Wael Farag [9/16] [EGY] bt Ravi Dixit [IND] 9-3 9-2 9-6; Chun Ming Leo Au [9/16] [HKG] bt Paramit Singh [IND] 9-0 9-1 9-6; Keagan Burkhart [NZL] bt Mahesh Mangaonkar [IND] 10-8 9-4 9-6.