Dev Sharma bags fourth junior Indian Squash Academy U-11 title

NAGPUR: The impressive run of Dev Sharma continued as the city youngster bagged yet another national-level squash title at Chennai recently.


In fact, both the Sharma brothers – Dev and Kulvir – maintained their dominance on the domestic circuit. While Dev emerged champion at the

Indian Squash Academy

(

ISA

) Junior Squash Championship, his elder brother Kulvir finished fifth. This was Dev’s fourth consecutive title triumph in the boys Under-11 category.


Currently ranked No. 2 in India by the Squash Rackets Federation of India (SRFI), Dev suffered a knee injury while playing in the semifinal against Anshuman Jaising, ranked No. 3 in India, but overcoming the minor setback he went on to win the match 3-1 to storm into the final.

Dev maintained his fine form in the final too and defeated Priyaan Thakker 3-0 in a one-sided encounter.

Earlier in the semifinal, Thakker, ranked No. 4, had stunned top seed Gurveer Singh. But against Dev, Thakker could not continue his magic and was floored by Dev’s clinical display.

Dev’s sibling Kulvir, playing in the Under-15 category, lost to the national champion and US Open champion Shreyas Mehta in the quarterfinals. Kulvir went down fighting against the top seed.

Later, Kulvir won against fourth seed Rutva Samant and sixth seed Parth Ambani in subsequent matches to finish fifth.

Sharma brothers train under Puneet Singh, Vijay Jangra and Premchand Rai. Both boys thanked their director of Mayo College, Lt Gen Kulkarni and Headmaster Junior School Pramod Chaturvedi for all their support and guidance which resulted in their exemplary performance.