Saksham Choudhary who is playing his first tournament after a gap of six months due to injury produced a brilliant performance to defeat 2nd seed Tushar Shahani 7-11, 11-8, 9-11, 12-10, 11-5 in an epic 5 game thriller in the semi-final round of the Otters Club Vedanta Squash Open, Organized by 5 Sports, in association with Otters Club at their glass-back squash courts on Friday .
Saksham Choudhary after his 7-11, 11-8, 9-11, 12-10, 11-5 upset win over 2nd seed Tushar Shahani in the semi-finals of the Otters Club Vedanta Squash Open.
Saksham who has quietly progressed under the radar faced his biggest challenge in 2nd seed Tushar Shahani. Tushar started attacking from the onset and took the 1st game 11-7. Saksham bounced back but faced a lot of resistance before winning the game 11-8 to make it 1-1. Saksham fought hard in the third set tiring Tushar by making him play longer rallies but Tushar prevailed to take the third game 11-9. With constant long rallies, Tushar was starting to lose steam and Saksham took the advantage to score back to back winners and race to an 8-0 lead but Tushar showed character push himself to the extreme and went on to score multiple winners to take the game to a 10-10 tiebreaker before Saksham managed to survive the scare winning the game 12-10 with the match tied at 2-2. It was a game of fitness as Tushar just could not manage the intensity and succumbed to a 5-11 defeat in the final game helping Tushar win the tie 7-11, 11-8, 9-11, 12-10, 11-5. In another match, Top seed Veer Chotrani survived the first game scare to beat Neel Joshi 8-11, 11-3, 11-8, 13-11 in a hard-fought semi-final match
In the women’s category, Aishwarya made short work of Mithali Surana who was high on confidence after defeating the top seed Tanaya M Parakh in the quarterfinals yesterday. Aishwarya defeated Mithali 11-2, 11-3, 11-6 on her way to the finals. In another match, 2nd seed Bhavana Goyal had no answers to Amira Singh’s attack and slumped to 2-11, 3-11, 6-11 defeat after a promising run in the tournament.
Results Boys U-19
Saksham Choudhary[3/4] bt Tushar Shahani [2] 7-11, 11-8, 9-11, 12-10, 11-5; Veer Chotrani [1] bt Neel Joshi 8-11, 11-3, 11-8, 13-11
Results Girls U19
Amira Singh [3/4] bt Bhavna Goyal [2] 11-4, 11-4, 11-7; Aishwarya Khubchandani [5/8] bt Mithali Surana 11-2, 11-3, 11-6