Indian eves blank Japan, enter quarters

Indian girls put up a dominant show to sweep aside Japan 3-0 and book their place in the quarterfinals of the World Junior Women’s Squash Team Championships at Wroclaw, Poland.

India finished second in their Pool C behind England and will take on the fourth seed Hong Kong in the quarters of the the biennial World Squash Federation event at the Hasta La Vista Club. Harshit Kaur Jawanda was the first to take the court against Risa Sugimoto. Harshit took control of the match early on, pinning Risa to the back corners and pounced on her opponent’s errors to win the first game 11-6.

Harshit continued to dominate the front of the court and Risa could not counter her ball control as the Indian raced away with the second game. Risa played some wonderful drops to take the third game to 5. However, the Delhi girl reasserted her dominance in the fourth game, winning it 11-4 in 22 minutes to put India 1-0 ahead in the pre-quarters.

Lakshya Ragavendran raced away to a two-game lead against Satomi Watanabe. The Japanese youngster could do precious little in the face of aggressive strokeplay from Lakshya.

But, Satomi hung on and waited for her chances edging the third game 12-10. Lakshya had match ball at 10-9 but could not convert allowing Satomi to reduce the deficit.

In an extremely tight fourth game, Lakshya held her nerve to close out the match at 14-12, giving India an unassaibale 2-0 lead. In the final rubber, Sachika Ingale beat Momoka Nakahira 3-0.