Otters Club’s Ekambir Singh breezed past Aditya Chandani of CCI-A to guide his team to victory in a first-round round-robin league match of the Otters Inter Club Juniors Squash League 2018, organised by the Indian Squash Professionals and being played at the Otters Club Squash Courts on Saturday. Syska and Wadhwa group are the chief sponsors.
Kavya Bansal and Tanay Punjabi provided a good start to the host team with both of them defeating their respective opponents Sara and Armaan in closely contested matches. CCI-Amanaged to put itself back in contention courtesy of a fine performance from Akanksha Gupta who defeated Varun Shah 9-11, 11-6, 10-12 and won a crucial point for her team. With a scoreline of 2-1 and 2 matches to go CCI-A had an opportunity to level scores but Ekambir Singh had other plans as he demolished Aditya Chandani with an 11-3, 11-3 scoreline to seal the deal for Otters Club.
In another match, the inexperienced Aryaa Oagle of JVPG proved no match to Rohan Padhye who did not break a sweat and finished the game 11-3, 11-7 while Aryaas teammate Ahaan also did not face any resistance from Aryan Agarwal on his way to an 11-5, 11-9 victory. JVPG gained some momentum when Ranbir Minocha gave a stiff competition to Vivaan Bhatia but Vivaan handled the loss of the first set well and kept his nerves to win the 4th rubber by 2-11,12-10,13-11 scoreline and win a crucial point for his team. Sole consolation to JVPG came from Aranv D who helped his team prevent a whitewash by beating Diva Shah 11-8, 11-9 to make the final score 4-1.
Meanwhile, Jindal Squash Academy & CCI-B beat Chembur Gymkhana and Goregaon Sports club respectively in closely contested matches with an identical scoreline of 3-2.
Results Round 1:
Otters Club bt Cricket Club of India A 4-1 (Kavya Bansal bt Sara V 10-12, 11-9, 11-4; Tanay Punjabi bt Armaan D 12-10, 11-7; Varun Shah lost to Akanksha Gupta 9-11, 11-6, 10-12; Ekambir Singh bt Aditya Chandani 11-3, 11-3; Agastya Bansal bt Yusuf P 11-6, 11-5); NSCI beat JVPG Club 4-1 ( Ahaan Bhansali bt Aryan A 11-5, 11-9; Rohan Padhye bt Aaryaa O 11-3, 11-7; Suren Gupta bt Shurya S 11-8, 11-9; Vivaan Bhatia bt Ranbir M 2-11,12-10,13-11; Diva Shah lost to Arnav D 811, 9-11) Jindal Squash Academy bt Chembur Gymkhana 3-2 ( Om Semwal bt Vidish Puri 11-5, 11-7; Mohit Bhatt bt Krish Parikh 11-1, 11-1; Nupur Joshi lost to Mahathi Subramaniam 10-12, 2-11; Neil Paswan lost to Pranav Nair 0-11, 12-10, 8-11; Pratap Gupta bt Vedant Bahari 11-9, 11-4). Cricket Club of India-B bt Goregaon Sports Club 3-2 (Sonya Bajaj lost to Aryan Mehta 11-3, 10-12, 7-11; Avani N bt Yash Kothari 11-6, 11-7; Aryan Diwan bt Khwahish Nagda 11-6, 11-2; Kabir Taraporewala bt Siddhant Bhandari 4-11, 11-7, 11-6; Ansh Somani lost to Vivaan Sagar 11-8, 7-11, 7-11)