Creditable outing for Indians, Neel Joshi annexe U-15 Cologne Jr Cup Squash title

Chennai: It was creditable performance by Indians with bright young Indian talent, Neel Joshi showing sensational touch by annexing the Under-15 title in the prestigious Cologne Junior Cup Squash tournament at Cologne in Germany last night.
A release from SRFI here today said the Maharashtra boy defeated top seed Marek Panacek of Czech republic 9-11, 11-3, 11-6, 11-3 to win the title.
In a draw of 128, Joshi was placed in the bottom half and seeded in the 33/64 bracket.
After a bye in the first round , he downed seed 9/16 Karim Farrag of Czech in straight games 11-2, 11-6, 11-4.
Another fluent 11-2, 11-6, 11-3 win over Baptiste Bouin of France brought him into the fourth round.
Joshi’s good touch was clear as he grew in strength to beat Miguel Mathis of Switzerland 11-5, 11-7, 11-6 for a quarterfinal berth.
This was followed by an impressive 11-4, 11-4, 11-6 win over Auggie Bhavsar, the 17/32 seed from USA that earned him a semi-final birth.
His next victim was the 3/4 seed Thimi Christiaens (Belgium) to whom be conceded one game but won 11-2, 7-11, 11-9, 11-5 to storm into the title-round.
In all 18 Indians had taken part in this important German event where some of the best talents from the world over participated.
Aside from Joshi, the other highlights of the Indian show was the runner up finish of three others–Rutva Samant in the U-13 boys section, Yuvna Gupta in the girls section and Aishwarya Khubchandani in the U-15 girls section.
Final standings of others:
Boys:
U-13: Jaiveer Dhillon (33 rd place) ;
U-15: Kanhav Nanavati (17th ), Shreemann (34th), Arnav Sareen (34th );
U-17: Rahul Baiha (5th), Saksham Choudhary (33rd), Inderjit Singh (34th), Raunak Advani (39th), Araash Mehta (43rd);
U-19: Aryan Parekh( 18th), Vikas Mehra (19th).
Girls:
U-15: Yoshna Singh (5th); Ananya Dabke (9th);
U-17: Jannia Singh (17th). (UNI)