Kush, Dhingra advance in World junior squash

Kush Kumar and Madhav Dhingra kept the Indian interest alive by making progress at the ongoing WSF World junior squash individual championship here.

Kush Kumar, seeded in the 3-4 bracket, made his appearance after a first round bye and lived up to the expectations with a quick 11-0, 11-7, 11-4 win over Luke Michael Mannion of Zimbabwe for a third round entry here Sunday.

Later, Dhingra defeated Nilis Lindgren of Sweden 11-1, 11-3, 11-4 in a first round match.

However, Velavan Senthilkumar lost to American Patrick Rooney in four games and Vijaykumar Meena went down fighting to Colombian Andres Felipe Herrera in five.

Velavan began well but soon slipped into arrears to lose the first two games. The Indian however fought back to take the third, but Patrick was sharper to take the game and match at 11-4, 11-4, 7-11, 11-7.

Vijaykumar fought all the way against a higher ranked player and the current Pan American junior champion Herrera, but failed in the final moments to sustain the pressure.

Points went neck and neck and both traded two games each, but leading 8-5 in the deciding game, Vijay had the misfortune of seeing two strokes' against him and his opponent seized the opportunity with deceptive returns to win the 64-minute match 11-1, 9-11, 11-7, 3-11, 11-8.