Velavan Senthilkumar wins British Junior Open Under-19 Squash title

Velavan Senthilkumar wins British Junior Open Under-19 Squash title

Rising Indian squash star Velavan Senthilkumar created history by winning the first-ever all-Indian Boys’ Under-19 final at the British Junior Open in Sheffield on Friday. The 5/8th seed defeated his unseeded compatriot Abhay Singh, 15-13, 11-2, 10-12, 11-7 in 59 minutes. India also secured the

bronze medal in this category after 9/16th seeded Adhitya Velavan Senthilkumar wins British Junior Open Under-19 Squash titleRaghavan finished third. Raghavan came back from two games down to upset the second seed Youssef Ibrahim of Egypt, 6-11, 6-11, 11-7, 11-7, 11-7 in 33 minutes in the bronze medal play-off. In the 91-year history of this event, considered the world’s second most prestigious junior tournament after the World Championships, this was the first time two Indians faced off in a summit clash. An elated national coach Cyrus Poncha commented, “This is the biggest thing that has happened to Indian Squash at the junior level! The British Open is the ‘Wimbledon’ of Squash and in this 2017 edition, India had 3 players finishing 1st, 2nd & 3rd in the boys under 19 category.“It was in the 1970s that Anil Nair won this event first for India and in more recent times our current National Champion Saurav Ghosal did it in 2004.”