Pool Reports

No sweat for top seeds

Routine wins for top seeds Egypt, England and Australia in the morning session, and a quickfire win for France over Venezuela to start the afternoon meant that the last 16 playoffs shaped up pretty much as expected.

Usa beat Japan to claim second spot behind France in pool C while hosts India also moved into the top sixteen with a 3/0 win over Kenya.

Crunch matches in the afternoon session were Canada v Ireland and Netherlands v Wales, with top spots in pools F and H at stake. Canada completed a narrow win with Jonathon Power and Shahier Razik collecting the necessary wins, while Wales produced the only seeding upset of the pool rounds, highlighted by Alex Gough - on his 37th birthday - beating Laurens Jan Anjema in five games.
   

Match reports & Snippets from Pradeep Vijayakar in Chennai ...

                                                POOL B:
                GERMANY beat FINLAND  2-1
        Simon Rosner 3-2 Olli Tuominen          11/8, 4/11, 10/12, 15/13, 11/3 (62m)
            Johannes Voit 0-3 Henrik Mustonen    8/11, 6/11, 4/11 (28m) 
            Tim Weber 3-2 Matias Tuomi               11/9, 9/11, 11/5, 7/11, 11/6 (60m) 

Germany hold off the Finns

The pool stages came to a close today, and although we only saw one minor seeding upset, Finland came so, so close to upsetting Germany.

Today's playing order was 1-3-2, so first up were Simon Rosner for Germany and Finland's Olli Tuominen, with 51 places separating them in the world rankings. But it was the German who triumphed, coming from 2-1 down and saving match balls in the fourth to win 11/3 in the fifth.

Henrik Mustonen levelled the match with a straight-games win over Johannes Voit, but at this point the Finns must have been thinking what might have been.

So it came down to the number twos, Tim Weber and Matias Tuomi, and in another five-setter Germany survived to take their place in the last sixteen.

Germany now meet England while the Finns get a bye in the first round of the 17-29 playoffs.

"We were luckier today, we didn’t expect Simon to pull off the first tie considering that his opponent Olli Tuominen had played so well against Amr Shabana.

"But Simon didn’t give up even though it is difficult to play Ollie when he is in his rhythm. A patient game helped helped Simon."

"Squash is not a big sport in Germany, but in four-five years our juniors will hopefully do better."


German Coach

"I just kept the ball in play. I tried to fathom what he was doing. I won the first but lost the next two -- the third on extra points. I won the fourth on extra points and an early 5-1 lead helped me take charge of the decider."

"I felt the pressure, but I kept the ball. I allowed myself to get used to his game and that made my job easy."

"We are seeded No 16 they were 17 so I am happy my team maintained the status quo."


German Technical Committee

Tough for Scots

"Without John White, who has taken a new job and couldn’t come, it was always going to be tough. But we have brought the youngsters and the average age of this team is 21, we look at it as a preparation for the 2010 Commonwealth Games to be held in New Delhi.

"Alan Clyne, our No 1 here, is shaping up well. Stuart and Harry will finish their university courses and go full time on the circuit."


Scotland Coach

 
Al-Mezayen pulls one back for Kuwait                            Beachill betters Lee              

Russians meet the Egyptian masters

You would have expected the babes of the sport, Russia, to be lambs to slaughter when they played title contenders Egypt. But it wasn’t so. The Egyptians kept the ball rolling. The Russians, who are fit, kept belting the ball.

In the third tie World No 8 Wael El Hindi was up against the oldest player in the tournament-- 43-year old Sergey Kostrykin. El Hindi gave him several meaty balls to hit and applauded when he hit some winners in a good natured match.

"It was like a master class," said Sergey with a wink. He took the sport eight years ago when he was in Finland on business. He has played in Finland and Egypt and runs an electrical business in Moscow. He has played volleyball, beach volleyball and done the biathlon.

Sergey’s wife Dina kept applauding him from the gallery. She helps run the business and plays a bit of squash. She says there are not many courts in Russia. But there are three at a sports complex in Moscow called Lugniki. They are trying to have a academy soon. The Russians last played in the Worlds at Vienna in 2003 when they brought just three players.

Of the other two, Alexi Severinov is a squash coach while Valery Litvinko is a fitness trainer in San Petersburg. He took to squash two years ago.

Illingworth leads USA past Japan

Stewart Boswell was rather modest when prodded about the five-setter he had against Amr Shabana in the World Open at Bermuda.

"I played as well as I have ever done. But for the crucial points he dictated the pace and his accuracy did it for him."

The Aussie can at least play from the memory of this match in the future.

Australia beat New Zealand 3-0. But Kiwi coach Dave Clark (back in command for this tournament only) said they took some positives from the match.

"We have plenty to learn from the Aussies who are several notches better than us. The round of 16 will be a different kettle of fish."

New Zealand meet France

                                                    POOL H:
             WALES beat NETHERLANDS 2-1
                 Alex Gough 3-2 Laurens Jan Anjema   11/6, 8/11, 11/8, 6/11, 11/7 (87m)
                 Jethro Binns 3-0 Tom Hoevenaars      11/6, 11/9, 11/4 (47m)
                 David Evans 0-3 Dylan Bennett          2/11, 8/11, 7/11 (22m)

"Feeling sore all over.

"These glass courts are hard and more so for an oldie like me.

"As for India, Sid (Suchde) is good and I have played Ritwik (Bhattacharya). But I haven’t watched Saurav (Ghoshal) play who is my opponent.

"I'll just chill out with the boys to celebrate ..."



'Goughy' was also enquiring about India's cricket score having watched Yuvraj struggle before going boom, boom against the Pakistan bowlers. His 12-year-old kid plays for Hampshire youth side.

 
            POOL G: PAKISTAN beat INDIA 3-0
  
3:  Farhan Mehboob   3-1   Siddharth Suchde           8/11, 12/10, 11/5, 11/5 (51m)
1:  Aamir Atlas Khan  3-2   Saurav Ghosal               12/10, 11/6, 11/13, 6/11, 11/9 (82m)
2:  Mansoor Zaman    3-0   Ritwik Bhattacharya        11/6, 11/9, 11/3 (25m)

Pakistan win the tie,
Saurav the hearts ...
Pradeep Vijayakar reports

Pakistan beat India 3-0 in their preliminary group G tie in ICL World Team Squash Championship at the ICL-SDAT courts here on Friday, but the scoreline is a big liar. It just does not convey how tough the match was.

Farhan Mehboob is notorious as a slow starter and he proved that again losing the opening game against India No. 3 Siddharth Suchde, the US collegiate champ from Harvard. After losing the second over extra points, he won the next two to put Pakistan ahead.

Now it was the battle of the number ones Saurav Ghosal and Aamir Atlas Khan, who had traded matches here at the Asian Juniors in 2005, Saurav winning the team event tie but losing the individual final.

In the first game the scores were level 10-all before a drop and a ball that died in the back nick saw Aamir prevail. The second Aamir claimed 11-6. In the third Saurav recovered from 4-7 to 9-all then slipped to let his his opponent lead 10-9. He hurt the same ligament between the knee and shin which he had injured in August. But the adrenalin was flowing and Saurav raised his game to win 13-11 after saving two match balls. Saurav kept the momentum going to claim the fourth, once sending Aamir the wrong way and playing some lovely drops.

The decider was neck and neck. Aamir kept playing the drop and Saurav’s counter drops didn’t pose problems. It was 8-all when Aamir’s volley drop from back won him a point after which Saurav had another slip which gave Aamir another match ball, which he took at the second attempt.

The closeness of the match was reflected in Aussie referee Chris Sinclair having to give 39 decisions, most of them apt. Once Aamir appealed for let when Saurav had the point and she relented, but not when Aamir appealed for other similar points.

Canadian referees assessor Rod Symington was assessing Chris in this match and looked contented. Chris and Rod had conducted the referees clinic ahead of this event.

"Saurav is a good player," said Aamir. "If one doesn’t play one’s best one can lose to him. I was not in the best rhythm and almost paid the price."

"Aamir is a class player," admitted Saurav, "but in the end I ran out of luck."

In the dead rubber, Ritwik Bhattacharya, lost 0-3 to Mansoor Zaman, who has the best finishing shots of all the Pakistanis. Ritwik’s slower game didn’t work and he didn’t go to pick all the drops Mansoor played.

"This is by far the best Indian squash side I have seen.

"I had expected a tough match like this.

"Saurav Ghosal is playing like a professional and coming up fast. He knows the game and reads it well. I advised Aamir to slow down the tempo because Saurav likes a fast, hard game.

"That helped."


Pakistan Coach

Crunch clash
for Welsh

Wales coach Chris Robertson said: "We are looking ahead to the tie against Holland which will decide who plays Pakistan and who India. The winner will play India. Normally it is very tight, Holland won last time around two years ago."

Wales are banking on veterans David Evans and Alex Gough, the 37-year-old world open quarter-finalist.

"David's game is good. Physically he isn’t too good though, we can’t race him too much,’’ said the coach about Evans, who has a long reach.

Chris said there was a good structured juniors programme in place in Wales.

South American Shortage

Not all continents have brought their best. Colombia are the best squash-playing country in South America, Brazil and Mexico are strong too, but just one team from the continent, Venezuela, are playing.

"Need money to come all the way from there ..."  said Venezuela coach Carlos Franzius.

Spain rue
Borja loss

Spain had a close 2-1 loss to Hong Kong yesterday as David Vidal stretched Hong Kong’s Dick Lau for an 80-minute five-game loss. He had another good match today  against England’s Nick Mathew who had to fight for every point even though he won 3-0.

Coach Constantino Casas said they badly missed the services of Borja Golan, a top 20 player who has a hamstring injury. They have around a thousand good players in his country.

Bermuda coach Denise Sommers advises Robert Maycock

Taipei Blood
the youngsters

Chinese Taipei have brought three 14-year-olds with their side, Chang-Chun-Yu, Chuan-Kai-Han and Chen-Ching-Han.

"We will groom them in time for the World Games which we are hosting in a few years’ time at Kuoshung," said their manager Amingo Hsu.

Surprisingly, China that great sporting nation are not around.

"We are trying to get them in," said an official from Malaysia.

Another said they might sneak in through the Hong Kong team. The Hong Kong side, well respected in Asia, had a close 2-1 win over Spain yesterday, and today's England win means they qualify for the last sixteen.

Springboks give Malaysians a fright

South Africa gave Malaysia a scare, taking one tie off them - Adrian Hansen beat Mohamed Nafizwan - before Malaysia won 2-1.

Coach Richard Castle said: "We have a good following for squash. A survey said it is the fourth most popular sport among men and eighth among women. Jesse Engelbrecht, Durban-born, has come over from Zimbabwe."

Stephen Coppinger is their second string player, ranked 89. He took a game off Ong Beng Hee in a keen tie.

Last time around SA finished ninth. So being seeded 12th here perplexes the coach.

"Maybe we have to prove a point when we play tomorrow against Kuwait ..."

The winner of this tie will join Malaysia in the last 16.

World champ Amr Shabana was the cynosure of all eyes, not only because of his stature but because he made heavy weather of his match against Finland’s Olli Tuominen. He took a game off the World Open champ.

Ollie, ranked No 16 had beaten Amr in an under-14 event years ago. "I know his game I kept him busy, a pity some big points didn’t go in my favour," said Ollie who had several game points but couldn’t convert them. The one game he won, the third, was ironically because Amr wasn’t too keen on extending himself, wanting some respite.

"He is a good player, he knows my game," said Amr. Asked if he was making a habit of bad starts (Aussie Stewart Boswell took him to five games at the World Open first round), Amr said: "You can say that ..."

Ong Beng Hee of Malaysia was also taken to five games by Kuwait’s rising star Abdullah Al-Mezayen. The 20-year-old has a classic game, can move about court in a flash and can play the difficult drop from the back with ease. He kept his opponent searching for answers before losing because of errors on the drop shot.



"He could have won 3-1," said coach Rahmat Khan, who said Abdullah should have played the drive more because the courts were too cold and the drop shot wouldn’t work.

Rahmat was Pakistan coach when Amir Atlas beat Abdullah in the Asian Junior final at these very courts in 2005. Beng Hee said: "All our players took it easy we don’t want to put pressure on ourselves at this early stage." But he paid a compliment to Abdullah: "At a young age he has got the fitness level for the top game. He’s the one to watch out for at the next Asians."

Bermuda, who hosted the recent World Open came without their top two players James Stout and Nick Kyme and were blanked 3-0 by India, who play arch-rivals Pakistan tomorrow. The Indian squash team refuse to be concerned by an inevitability of a Pakistan win.

"We will play out of our skins you shall see," said a team member.

Pakistan beat India 3-0 at the Asian Seniors not long ago. The Junior team also beat India 2-1 semi-finals at this venue in the Asian Juniors in 2005. The silver lining was Saurav Ghoshal beating their No 1 Aamir Atlas only to lose to him in the individual semis.

The two are in opposite camps here again. Aamir has risen to No 28 while Saurav is at 48 in the PSA rankings.

Asked about his game Aamir Atlas Khan said: "I was 15 then, I am 17 now - still a junior but I don’t play junior events. I took a break from the circuit events to concentrate on the camps of the Pakistan team."

The team has been been training for almost two and a half months under Fahim Gul, who took over six months ago.

"He has taught us some new things, they are helping our game," said Aamir who was seen playing his favourite three-wall boast shot against Kenya’s Hardeep Reel.

Aamir is the nephew of legend Jansher Khan who recently made a comeback to the circuit but without much success. "Uncle is playing but it is not the same. The skill is there but other aspects are missing," said Aamir.

Aamir has beaten one top ten player, No 8 Wael El Hindi of Egypt, and was leading 2-0 against England’s James Willstrop in last year's Pakistan Open. That should be food for thought for the Indians ...

Master Maniam

Maj Maniam, who has given Indian squash a big boost for over a decade now had different role on Wednesday - master of ceremony of the opening of the 21st ICL World Team Squash Championship in Chennai.

And he made a great job of it. He introduced all the 29 teams adding funny one-liners in between about different things, from husband-wife relations to squashy and not-so-squashy relations.
  

Working towards the Games

Raja Randhir Singh, secretary-general of the Indian Olympic Association and member of the Olympic Council of Asia for over 30 years was the chief guest.

He said construction work for the new infrastructure and other facilities will be finished well before the 2010 commonwealth Games to be hosted by Delhi.

"Everything will be on schedule. There may be some short delay in some areas, but still we are confident that we will be able to meet the deadline," he said.

The Asian Games medallist in trap shooting told the gathering at the opening function that a delegation from the CWG organizing panel will visit the ICL Squash Academy to study the world class facilities.

"A delegation will be here soon and will inspect the world class structure erected here and will install similar facilities in the national capital for the CWG," he said.
  

And the Olympics?

What about squash in the Olympics? Randhir Singh, who is also the secretary general of the Olympic Council of Asia, said the he will try his best to get Squash included in the Olympic Games.

"Squash has already been included in the Asian Games. Along with your WSF president Jahangir Khan, I will try my best to include in the Games."

Randhir Singh, a former Asian Games medallist in clay pigeoan shooting, explained how squash had helped him in excelling in shooting.

"Our palaces in Patiala had squash courts and we grew up playing the game. It helped me in many in my shooting career."
  

Cheering the Indian team was India women’s No 2 Deepika Pallikal. The beautiful Deepika now trains most of the year in Egypt thanks to the sponsorship of Mittal Champions Trust.

She met Amir Wagih one of her many coaches. Wagih is here as the Egypt coach.

Chinese Taipei are also on a learning curve here.

Their manager Amingo Hsu said the players were all kids.

"We hope they get the exposure before we stage the World Games in Kusohung."

Sri Lanka made their debut playing against South Africa. They were happy Saman Tillekeratne took a game off Jesse Engelbrecht. The South Africans are all professionals.

The Lanks hope for better things as N Ramachandran has promised to set up a squash centre. They would prefer it to be in Kandy, away from the busy Colombo.

Rahmat Khan coached Pakistan juniors here in 2005.This time he is with the Kuwait team who were then coached by Amir Wagih.

"It’s a tough call, these boys are so serious about studies, they can barely spend two hours on the squash courts. I Have to drag Abdulla out of school."

Gallery: the Opening Ceremony ... photos from Jos Aarts

30-Nov:
Ramy out but Egypt still top seeds

The foot injury which prevented Ramy Ashour from competing in this week's Endurance World Open Squash Championship in Bermuda has now caused the world number two from Cairo to withdraw from the Egypt team in next week's 21st ICL World Men's Team Squash Championship in Chennai, India.

The withdrawal was confirmed today by the World Squash Federation.  Egypt's position as No1 seeds was considered by the WSF seeding panel - but no alteration is required.

The revised Egypt squad will now be: 1 Amr Shabana, 2 Karim Darwish, 3 Wael El Hindi, 4 Mohammed Abbas.
 

England to defend in Chennai

After a hectic Autumn schedule, culminating in the Endurance World Open in Bermuda, many of the world's top men will be heading to Chennai in India for the biannual Men's World Team Championships.

England are defending champions, although Egypt, with Amr Shabana and Ramy Ashour, will start favourites.

France and Australia expected to mount serious challenges for the title, while Malaysia are the obvious 'dark horses', and with Jonathan Power back in the Canadian lineup and John White in Scotland colours you can't count either of those out in a three-man format.

The ICL Squash Academy is getting spruced up for the big occasion. The facility boasts seven ASB glass back courts, plus one permanent four-sided all-glass centre court. The all-glass court has undergone a minor transformation with a new glass floor. In addition, a new state-of-the-art gym will be available in the Academy complex.

The Championship will be played in two stages: In the first stage, the teams will be placed in eight pools, the teams playing each other in a 'round-robin league'. The top two teams from each pool will then progress to the knockout phase, while the remaining teams will play for positions 17 to 29.
 

Pools Schedule

www.wmt2007.com

Former world number one Jonathon Power will play for Canada at the ICL World Men's Team Squash Championship in Chennai.

Power, 33,  retired from the pro circuit last year but still competes at national championships and international events for Canada. He  is keeping busy these days promoting the sport across North America by holding camps and playing exhibitions.  He and his wife Sita are proud parents of a nine-month old daughter.  Power is also currently working on a project to build a squash academy in Toronto for potential high performance players.

Joining Power on the Canadian team for the Chennai championship are Shahier Razik of Toronto, who is coming off two PSA tournament wins in Canada and is ranked 25th in the world; Matthew Giuffre of Edmonton; and Shawn Delierre of Brossard, Quebec.

"I played Jonathan in an exhibition recently and he is looking very strong," said Giuffre.  "It’s just great that he’s coming back.  With him in the line-up we’ve increased the strength of our team."

This year’s world team championship has attracted 29 countries, including the top eight ranked players in the world, headed by Amr Shabana of Egypt.  Canada, seeded sixth for the tournament, is in a pool with 11th seeds Ireland and Austria, seeded in the 17/24 bracket.  Egypt, England and France are seeded one, two and three, respectively.

Canada was fourth at the last world championship in 2005 held in Islamabad, Pakistan - with Power, Razik, Giuffre and Graham Ryding of Toronto.  They lost the bronze medal match to France in the playoff for third place.  England beat Egypt in the final.

National men’s team coach Gene Turk, of Winnipeg, believes Canada can aim for another top four finish: "It’s going to be a challenge to repeat that result," said Turk.  "We’ll need to get some big wins.  Jonathon brings a lot of experience and gives us a great chance to win at the number one position."

Power, who won the Commonwealth Games singles gold medal in 2002 and went on to acquire 37 PSA Tour titles from 61 final appearances, first topped the world rankings in May 1999.  The most successful North American squash player of all time retired from the PSA Tour in March 2006 having reclaimed the world No1 ranking - his 13th month in pole position.
 

"I feel I can still add a lot to the team and win some games at the team worlds.

"I’ve been training hard for these championships and I feel my playing is of high calibre."

"Squash Canada was thrilled that Jonathon wanted to remain an integral member of the Canadian men's squad following his retirement from pro circuit.

"Jonathon is a very patriotic athlete, and his desire to remain with the team was obviously warmly received by Squash Canada.  He plays a strong role as both an athlete and leader on the team, and is of course enthusiastically welcomed by the international squash community."


Squash Canada
Executive director

POOL A: [1] EGYPT, [16] GERMANY, [17/24] FINLAND, [25/29] RUSSIA
POOL B: [2] ENGLAND, [15] HONG KONG, [17/24] SPAIN
POOL C: [3] FRANCE, [14] USA, [17/24] JAPAN, [25/29] VENEZUELA
POOL D: [4] AUSTRALIA, [13] NEW ZEALAND, [17/24] SCOTLAND
POOL E: [5] MALAYSIA, [12] SOUTH AFRICA, [17/24] KUWAIT, [25/29] SRI LANKA
POOL F: [6] CANADA, [11] IRELAND, [17/24] AUSTRIA
POOL G: [7] PAKISTAN, [10] INDIA, [17/24] KENYA, [25/29] BERMUDA
POOL H: [8] NETHERLANDS, [9] WALES, [17/24] SWEDEN, [25/29] CHINESE TAIPEI

"I'm absolutely delighted - it's excellent news, I can't wait. Even though I've played for England before in the Europeans, this will be very different - the expectations are different, as we're always favourites in Europe. 

"There's a completely different kind of pressure playing team events - we're much more used to playing against each other rather with each other. And everybody seems to play a little bit better against you when they're playing for their country!

"Although we are defending champions, we probably won't be top seeds in India - but I hope we're seeded to reach the final, and that we play Egypt in the final."

"Despite the fact that I'm the only southerner in the squad, we all get on really well together - the team spirit is really immense.  We've all been training together in national squads for some years now and are really good friends. 

"Playing in the World Team Championships was my first goal of the season - so I'm glad to have achieved this. My next is to get into the world top ten! 

"I'm so excited - let's hope we can come back with the goods!"

Hosts face tough task ...

“This time we have seven more teams and we are expecting a much tougher draw. It will be very difficult to improve on our previous performance and a top-eight finish looks a distant dream. But both Ritwik and Saurav are playing well and they are strong contenders to make it to the team. Backed by the home conditions, let’s see if we can pull off some miracles.”


Indian National Coach, to The Indian Express

2005 Event, Pakistan

www.chennai.org.uk