Washington, Jan 30 Veer Chotrani stunned the French world No. 19 Baptiste Masotti in a five-game thriller in the round of 16 at the Squash on Fire Open in Washington, while compatriot Velavan Senthilkumar went down to Mexican world No. 11 and second seed Leonel Cardenas in five games.
World No. 49 Chotrani staged a second straight comeback to sink No. 4 seed Masotti 11-6, 7-11, 8-11, 11-1, 11-9. and will meet sixth seed Declan James of England in the quarterfinals of the PSA Bronze-level event.
Chotrani had recovered from 2-1, 8-2 down to beat Balazs Farkas in round one, and once again needed all five games to beat France’s Masotti 24 hours later, clinging on in a tension-filled fifth game, in which he saw five match balls come and go from 10-4 up before taking the sixth with a smart backhand drop at 10-9.
Chotrani will now face Declan James, who himself had to fight back from 2-0 down to win in five against Muhammad Asim Khan, closing out a 72-minute duel 11-7 in the fifth.
That wasn’t even the end of the five-gamers in the afternoon session, as No. 2 seed Cardenas came out on top of another epic against Senthilkumar.
For much of their 64-minute encounter it looked as though the Indian southpaw might cause a sizable upset, but Cardenas came up clutch in the closing stages, most notably on a sensational match ball, when he showed some remarkable retrieval skills to keep a 26-shot rally alive before flicking a forehand winner down the line.
In the women’s section, seventh seed Anahat Singh beat Hayley Ward (RSA) 11-5, 11-8, 12-14, 11-5 in the second round. She will take on Egyptian second seed Sana Ibrahim in the quarterfinals.
In another entertaining battle, top seed Mohamed Elshorbagy beat rising star Noor Zaman after a hard-fought fourth-game tiebreak.
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