Washington, Jan 29 Reigning men’s national champion Velavan Senthilkumar and Veer Chotrani advanced in the Squash on Fire Open in Washington with hard-fought first round wins in the PSA Bronze-level event.
World No. 46 Senthilkumar rallied to beat England’s Tom Walsh 12-14, 11-8, 11-8, 11-6 and will next meet Mexican world No. 11 and second seed Leonel Cardenas. World No. 49 Chotrani edged out Hungary’s Balazs Farkas 6-11, 9-11, 11-5, 11-9, 11-3, and will take on French world No. 19 and fourth seed Baptiste Masotti next.
Chotrani found himself on the brink of defeat to the Hungarian No. 1, sitting 8-2 down in game four, having lost the first two games before winning the third. But the talented Indian dug deep to win nine of the next 10 points, sending the match to a decider and shifting the momentum firmly in his favour. He carried that momentum into the decider, too, racing clear to bring up seven match balls at 10-3, needing only one to get over the line.
Meanwhile, Women’s National champion and seventh seed Anahat Singh received a first-round bye. That was followed by another five-game tussle between Menna Hamed and Wai Yhann Au Yeong in the match immediately afterwards.
Au Yeong only got into the tournament earlier this week but threatened an upset in round one as she came out on top of two lung-busting tiebreaks in the first two games against Hamed, winning the first 15-13 and the second 19-17.
Hamed was being hampered by an injury to her toe and started game three 1-0 down after being given a time violation for a delayed return to court, but she quickly began to find her rhythm and her range nonetheless.
After closing out game three 11-5, she overturned a 5-3 deficit to take the fourth 11-7 and would need only seven more minutes to clinch her spot in round two, wrapping up the decider with a neat backhand drop down the linear 10-4.
Later in the day, there was an impressive 3-2 win for Hayley Ward over Xin Ying Yee, while Noor Zaman overcame a tricky test in the form of wildcard Yee Xian Siow.
Sam Todd also got the better of crowd favourite Valerii Fedoruk in the day’s final match on the glass, and Nathan Lake rounded out the day’s play with a 3-1 win over Mazen Hesham.
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