Four Indian players -- Siddarth Suchde, Saurav Ghosal, Gaurav Nandrajog and Sahil Vora -- comprising the first string national squash team, made it to the second round of the 12th World junior men's squash championship, which got under way in Chennai, on Tuesday.
This is the first time in the history of Indian squash that players have progressed to the second round in the World junior championship.
India, who have been regularly participating in the event since 1992, have fielded 11 players, including a seven-member second string team, for the championship.
Supreet Singh, who was just pipped to the first string team by Sahil Vora, and Yashvardhan Singh, also won their first round matches.
Supreet Singh of Mumbai displayed great fighting qualities to overcome Ali Alramezi of Kuwait in a keenly-contested match. Ghoshal and Yashvardhan got walk-overs from their Kuwaiti rivals, as they could not turn up due to late arrival of their flights.
Suchde, who is the the top seeded Indian, Nandrajog and Vora did not face much opposition in their three-game wins. Suchde is the best bet to progress further when he takes on Salem Faiz Mohammad of Kuwait tomorrow, while Ghosal, Vora and Nandrajog are considered underdogs against their respective opponents in the second round.
The Supreet-Ali Alramezi match saw the Indian win the first game 9-5. Alramezi rallied to claim the next two (9-7 and 9-5) after trailing 4-0 in both games. Supreet had to wriggle out of tight situations before eventually tilting the balance in his favour.
