Top seed Sanjay Rajpal in a tremendous turn around survived from the brink of defeat to defeat Raja Parthasarathy 3-2 in the MO50 quarter-finals of the third Mumbai Masters Squash Championship 2024, organized under the auspices of the Squash Rackets Federation of India and played at the Cricket Club of India courts on Saturday.
Rajpal lost the two opening games, but he did not give up easily, instead, he staged a gallant fightback. Parthasarathy seemed to run out of steam and Rajpal exploited the situation and went on to comfortable win three games on the trot to clinch a satisfying 10-12, 11-13, 11-4, 11-7, and 11-7 win and a place in the final.
Niraj Makhija of UAE continued march ahead as he defeated the joint 3-4 seed Anuj Kalia 11-4, 8-11, 11-7, and 11-6 to also progress to the last four.
Results – Quarter-finals – MO35: 1-Arjun Agnihotri bt Virendra Pawar 11-2, 11-2, 11-2;
Rushabh Vora bt Aakash Sharma 11-6, 11-5, 11-8;
2-Prateek Chalia bt Mahesh Kadam 11-6, 11-6, 9-11, 12-10.
MO40: 1-Paul Ipe bt Appachu Sk 11-4, 11-4, 11-2;
Aditya Maheshwari bt 3-4-Manish Chavan 11-7, 7-11, 11-7, 11-7;
3-4-Abishek Laxminarayan bt Saurabh Sinha 11-6, 11-4, 11-3;
2-Sanjay Pawar bt Amitpal Kohli 16-14, 6-11, 11-5, 11-3.
MO45: Shailendra Pratap Singh bt Prabkirat Sanghera 7-11, 11-5, 12-10, 11-8;
Praveen Murthy bt 3-4-Abheek Datta 11-9, 13-11, 11-8;
3-4-Benjamin Nedarapalli bt Nikhil Kumar 11-8, 11-8, 11-2;
Kuncheria Marattukalam bt Sunil Sihag 11-7, 11-8, 11-7.
MO50: 1-Sanjay Rajpal bt Raja Parthasarathy 10-12, 11-13, 11-4, 11-7, 11-7;
Varinder Singh bt Jay Asundi 11-9, 9-11, 11-9, 11-1;
Niraj Makhija (UAE) bt 3-4-Anuj Kalia 11-4, 8-11, 11-7, 11-6;
Dalip Tripathi bt Gourav Rakshit 11-9, 11-2, 11-3.