Squash team settles for silver; India finish at 10th place

The men’s squash team settled for a silver after losing their title match against Malaysia as India rounded off their campaign in the second Asian Youth Games with a 10th-place finish here on Friday.

India finished with an overall tally of 14 medals (three gold, four silver and seven bronze) after the trio of Madhav Yogesh Dhingra, Kush Kumar and Vijay Meena lost 1-2 against the Malaysians in a hard-fought men’s squash team event final.

Vijay Meena was the first to take the court against Yow Eain at the OSC Squash Hall and the contest turned out to be an exciting clash.

Eain took the first two games before Meena made a comeback to level the scoreline at 2-2. In the decider, the lanky Indian started off well and reeled off seven straight points to make it 7-1. He kept up the momentum and put on display some fine fronthand cross-court shots to win the contest 5-11, 7-11, 11-9, 11-6, 11-5 in over an hour contest.

India’s gold medallist in the men’s singles squash competition, Kush Kumar could not repeat his magic and was humbled by Mohammad Syafiq 2-3 in another hard-fought contest. Kush lost 4-11, 11-7, 3-11, 12-10, 6-11 in 55 minutes.

In the third and final match, Yogesh Madhav Dhingra failed to provide any resistance to Lunn Ti Chan and lost 1-3 in 37 minutes.