Squash c’ship in Pune: Senthilkumar crushes Yadav’s dream run in qualifiers

College of Military Engineering (CME), Pune, player Awdesh Yadav’s fairytale journey to the final qualifying round ended on a bitter note as he lost in straight games to Chennai’s Guhan Senthilkumar (2-11 1-11 5-11) during the 76th Senior Squash Nationals at the RSI Sports Club on Wednesday.

Senthilkumar, being the 9/16th seed was the favourite for this match as his opponent was seeded 25/40th. However, after having beaten a couple of higher ranked opponents in the previous four qualifying rounds, Yadav was expected to give a tough fight. Despite playing the Chennai player previously, he failed to learn from his mistakes and that is what eventually cost him.

His opponent, on the other hand, learnt his lessons from their previous encounter and even though he managed to win by a 3-1 set score, he knew he made a mistake that he was hoping to avoid going into the game. He noticed from the initial stages that he had a speed advantage over the Pune man and made the most of it, taking full advantage of the court while controlling the T.

After winning only three points in the first two games, Yadav put up a tougher fight in the third, but only managed to add five points to his total. At the end of the day, the 9/16th seed’s defence came out on top and that helped him secure a pathway into the main draw beginning on Thursday.

Guhan Senthilkumar: “I think I’ve improved as a player since I last played him. I’ve started to focus solely on the match in hand and not let other things disrupt me. Also, last time I started slow and gave him an opportunity to beat me, so it was important for me to avoid it this time around. Today’s performance was very good. I feel strong, fresh and extremely fit and hopefully, I can carry that into the main draw.”

Awdesh Yadav: “Being from the army, we play a lot of sports, but I think my fitness was lacking today. I also need to work on my racket skills more and focus on certain nuances in my game. I have also not been able to train regularly for the past two months, and the lack of sharpness was evident in the game. My opponent is a very good player. I played him before in Bengaluru and he won 3-1.”

Following are the Results: Fifth(Final) Qualifying Round: Mens:

Guhan Senthilkumar(TN) bt Awdesh Yadav(Ser) 11-2, 11-1, 11-5;

Aishwary Singh(Mah) bt Ashish Patel(Ser) 11-3, 11-5, 11-7;

Veer Chotrani(Mah) bt Dinesh R(TN) [17/24]11-9, 11-6 Retired;

Sandeep Jangra(Ser) bt Raunak Singh(Mah) 11-3, 11-3, 11-1;

Ravi Dixit(Ser) bt Mehul Kumar (Ser) 11-4, 11-7, 11-5

Womens: First Qualifying Round:

Aelina Shah(Mah) bt Nikita Agarwal (Mah) 13-11 11-8 11-5;

Anjali Semwal(Mah) bt Hresha Patil(Kar)11-1, 11-1, 11-3;

Sano Singhi(WB) bt Elie Tahmasebmirza(Mah) 11-1, 11-1, 11-1;

Aishwarya Khubchandani(Mah) bt Radhika Jain(Raj)11-1, 11-3, 11-2;

Prashasti Mattas(Goa) bt Shruti Mane(Mah) 11-2, 11-0, 11-2;

Aariya Patel(Mah) bt Nishita Burhan(J&K)11-0, 11-0, 11-0;

Anwesha Reddy(TN) bt Ankita Patil(Mah) 11-1, 11-2, 11-1;

Gangu Nirguda(Mah) bt Soni Kumari(BR) 11-0, 11-2, 11-0;

Howrah Bhanpurawala(Mah) bt Neaketa Chawla(Del) 11-3, 11-5, 11-5;

Yoshna Singh(Mah) bt Mehr Un Nisa(J&K) 11-1, 11-1, 11-1;

Bijali Darvada(Mah) bt Neha Kumari(BR) 11-0, 11-0, 11-1;

First Published:
Jun 13, 2019 16:17 IST

Source: Read Full Article