Malaysia blow away India to set up final with Egypt

Chennai: The air was expectant with upcoming jubilation. Everyone at the Express Avenue mall was looking forward to the moment India made it to the final. Everyone, but the Malaysians. They didn’t get the script. Up against the higher-ranked hosts and an irrepressible crowd, fourth seeds Malaysia played out of their skins to stun India 3-0 and knock them out of the competition. While Malaysia will face favourites Egypt in the summit clash of the Squash World Cup, powered by HCL, on Saturday, the shell-shocked home side will have to make do with a joint bronze medal along with fellow semifinal losers Japan.It all started with World No. 149’s Ong Sai Hung’s triumph against World No. 62 Abhay Singh. Hung dominantly clinched the first game, never giving a chance to the Indian to gain a foothold. In the second game, Abhay capitalized on a series of forehand errors from Hung to inch ahead and took off from there. He employed powerful drives to pull Hung to the back end and then sprung out delicate drops to take him apart in the third game.The Malaysian, though, came back strongly in the fourth game, and kept sending Abhay the wrong way with his deceptive drives to force a decider. In a nerve-jangler of a fifth game, Abhay failed to convert two match points and Hung prevailed by the barest of margins to win the match 7-4, 5-7, 1-7, 7-1, 7-6.The second match of the tie saw the precocious 18-year-old Aira Azman taking on the 36-year-old Joshna Chinappa. Aira made a flying start, finding the open spaces with effortless ease to routinely wrong-foot Joshna. The Chennai girl tried to mount a comeback, winning the third game, but Aira was in no mood to let up. The youngster also benefited from a number of contentious calls by the referees, which left Joshna displeased.A 7-3, 7-3, 5-7, 7-4 victory to Aira meant India’s other veteran player Saurav Ghosal was tasked with a must-win to keep the hosts in the hunt. Unfortunately, the 36-year-old had picked up an injury the previous day and came out with a heavily bandaged right knee, due to which his on-court movement was visibly hampered. Saurav tried to close the court down with ball control and shorten the rallies, but it was not enough to turn things his way. His opponent Darren Pragasam needed no second invitation and drove his team into the final with a 7-5, 2-7, 7-6, 7-5 win.Egypt march into final with clinical win: Top seeds Egypt bulldozed their way into the final with a 4-0 clean sweep against Japan on Friday. All four of Egypt’s players came up with some eye-catching strokeplay to outclass their fourth-seeded opponents. The highlight of the tie was Egypt’s promising young player Fayrouz Abouelkheir taking out rising Japanese talent Satomi Watanabe in straight games.Results: Semifinals: Egypt bt Japan 4-0, Malaysia bt India 3-0.
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