Mumbai: Abhishek Agarwal and Sanya Vats won the Men’s and the Women’s titles of the Otters Club Vedanta Squash Open, organised by 5 Sports, in association with Otters Club at their glass back squash courts. In U-19 final, Veer Chotrani defeated Saksham Choudhary to lift the title. Abhishek, who had an easy victory over Sandeep Jangra on his way to the finals, faced his toughest competition in unseeded Tushar Shahani who defeated the 2nd seed Ranjit and was determined to win the competition.
Tushar started the game on a high, scoring back to back winners to race to a 6-1 lead in the first game but Abhishek, who had a little trouble picking up the drop shots, did not let the game slip away and came back strongly to level the scores at 8-8. Tushar managed to hold off Abhishek by blocking him just enough to avoid a replay and restricting his movements to take the first game 11-9. In the second game, he was in complete control of Abhishek, who made Tushar work all corners of the court before taking the game 11-4.
Tushar had lost the intensity of his first game victory and made unforced errors at crucial moments which helped Abhishek take the 3rd and 4th games by 11-6, 11-6 and the championship by 9-11, 11-4, 11-6, 11-6. In the Women’s finals, third seed Sanya Vats secured an upset win over top seed Urwashi Joshi to take the women’s trophy home. It was a tough game with both players scoring back to back points in the first game, Sanya took a while to get used to Urwashi’s serves but was able to intercept them as the game progressed which helped her to take the first game 11-8.
Sanya made a few bad shot choices which cost her the second game as Urwashi edged past Sanya to an 8-11 victory. 3rd and 4th games saw no change in fortunes for Urwashi as Sanya managed to keep herself in the lead to win the championship by 11-8, 8-11, 11-8, 11-6. In the Boys U-19 finals, Veer Chotrani dominated Saksham Choudhary winning the game 11-6, 9-11, 11-3, 11-4. Meanwhile, Aishwarya who lost out on an opportunity for a double title after losing to Sanya Vats in the semis fought hard to claim her U-19 title defeating a higher ranked Amira Singh in a game that went down the wire. It was a very tough game with nothing separating the two in the first 4 games with Amira winning the 1st and 3rd game while Aishwarya bouncing back to win the 2nd & 4th games all by an identical 11-9 margin. The fifth game was anti-climactic with Aishwarya stepping up and dominating Amira to take the 5th game 11-2 and win the championship.
Results
Men’s final: Abhishek Agarwal bt Tushar Shahani 9-11, 11-4, 11-6, 11-6; Women’ final: Sanya Vats bt Urwashi Joshi 11-8, 8-11, 11-8, 11-6; Boy’s U-19 final: Aishwarya Khubchandani bt Amira Singh 9-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9, 11-2; Girl’s U-19 final: Veer Chotrani bt Saksham Choudhary 11-6 9-11 11-3 11-4
