KUALA LUMPUR, April 30 — The Malaysian men have a tougher road to the final compared to their women counterparts, but hopes will be on national number one Ng Eain Yow and veteran Mohd Nafiizwan Mohd Adnan to spring some upsets at the 20th Asian Individual Squash Championships at the National Squash Centre, Bukit Jalil, from May 1 to 5.
World No 37 Eain Yow, Mohd Nafiizwan and Ivan Yuen have been seeded joint fifth-eighth. All three have been given first-round byes.
Drawn in the top half of the draw, Eain Yow, 21, is slated to meet defending champion Max Lee of Hong Kong in the quarter-finals.
Eain Yow lost to Leo Au of Hong Kong in the round of 16 in the 2017 edition of the Asian meet, which was held in Chennai.
However, he has shown strong performances of late and did well to reach the quarter-finals of the Macau Open earlier this month, where he defeated Mohd Nafiizwan in five sets in the second round.
The hot favourite for the men’s title is India’s Saurav Ghosal. The 32-year-old is enjoying a purple patch in his career, having powered to a career-high ranking of number 10 in the world this month.
But the Indian has a poor record in regional meets. He blew his chance and settled for silver at the 2014 Asian Games and also lost in the final of the 2017 Asian Individual Championships to Leo Au.
Thus, Saurav would be hungry and desperate to nail this Asian title to get the monkey off his back. He opens his campaign against either Ali Alshammiri of Kuwait or David Pelino of the Philippines in the second round on Wednesday.
But it will not be a walk in the park for Saurav as Hong Kong have sent a strong team featuring three players seeded in the top four, led by world number 21 Yip Tsz Fung.
Joining Tsz Fung is Max Lee, who is world number 22, and Leo Au, who is at 24th. Both are seeded joint third and fourth respectively and should reach the semi-finals.
In the women’s competition, Malaysia’s leading player Low Wee Wern is seeded fourth and placed in the same bracket as Annie Au of Hong Kong.
The 28-year-old Penangite, who reached the final in Macau, will be eager to put two years of nightmare recovering from knee surgery behind her when she faces local lass Chan Yiwen in the second round.
The dark horse of the women’s competition is, however, national champion S. Sivasangari.
The Asian Games silver medallist is seeded sixth and starts against Pranghatai Phongrattana of Thailand in the second round and should ease through to the quarter-finals, where she is expected to meet Joey Chan of Hong Kong.
Squash Racquets Association of Malaysia (SRAM) director Major (Rtd) S. Maniam has expressed his delight in welcoming some of the best players in the world to Kuala Lumpur.
He said it is always special to host a major regional event in Kuala Lumpur and witness some of the best players in the region and the world.
“This is also the one time I feel that the championship is quite open. We may have a top-10 player in Saurav but all the top men’s players have beaten one another, and I feel that it will be a closely contested affair.
“It is also similar in the women’s event as the top players from Hong Kong, India and Malaysia are all doing well and the title is really up for grabs,” he added.
The first round will start at 10 am tomorrow. All seeded players will join the fray in the second round, which begins at 3pm on the same day.
A total of 78 players from 14 countries will play in the championships.
For the record, when Malaysia last hosted the Asian Individual Championships in 2011, Mohd Nafiizwan, who is now 33, won the men’s title, while Datuk Nicol David won the women’s event.
Nicol, who has announced that she will be retiring at the end of the season, is not playing in the competition this time.
In her absence, Wee Wern will lead Malaysia’s challenge in the women’s competition together with S. Sivsangari. Wee Wern is seeded joint third-fourth while Sivasangari is joint fifth-eighth. — Bernama
