Indian women lose to Malaysia
in Asian squash final

The Indian women's team was forced to settle for the silver medal in the 11th Asian squash championships after going down 0-3 to hosts Malaysia in the final at the National Squash Centre in Bukit Jalil, Kuala Lumpur, on Wednesday.

As the scorline suggests, it was a one-sided final as Sharon Wee hardly raised a sweat in beating Mekhla Subedar 9-0, 9-0, 9-5 to give Malaysia a 1-0 lead. Then, Nicol David, ranked 19th in the world, had it just as easy while beating Joshna Chinappa 9-1, 9-0, 9-0.

With the title already assured, Malaysia's third player Tricia Chuah easily beat Vaidehi Reddy 9-4, 9-3 in a best-of-three games match to complete the sweep.

Hong Kong finished fourth, beating Japan 2-1.

The Indian men too ended up on the losing side in the play-off match for third/fourth places, losing 1-2 to Hong Kong.

After Wong Wai Hang beat Manish Chotrani 9-3, 7-9, 9-1, 9-1, Ritwik Bhattacharya did well for India, beating Faheem Khan 9-3, 9-2, 9-1. However, Vincent Cheung clinched the issue for Hong Kong, scoring over Bikram Uberoi 9-6, 9-3, 9-2 in the third match.

Pakistan foiled Malaysia's dream of sweeping all the four titles at stake when they beat them 3-0 in the men's team final.

Malaysia had earlier won the men's and women's individual titles through Ong Beng Hee and Nicol David respectively.

In the men's final, Mohd Azlan Iskandar went down tamely to Shahid Zaman 2-9, 0-9, 6-9 in 31 minutes in the first singles. Beng Hee then lost to Mansoor Zaman 7-9, 9-4, 9-10, 6-9. In the dead rubber played over best-of-three games, Kenneth Low lost to Aijaz Azmat 9-0, 1-9, 1-9.