Chowfin, Murdia snatch hard-fought wins at squash meet

Armaan Chowfin of Goa and Tanay Murdia of Rajasthan kicked off their campaigns with hard- fought victories in the 39th Bombay Gymkhana Maharashtra State Open Junior Squash Championship here today.
Chowfin rallied from the loss of the opening game that stretched into extra points to prevail over Avinash Yadav of Maharashtra 10-12 11-6 12-10 13-11 in an eventful boys' under-15 second round clash.
In other all-Maharashtra second round action, Ansh Punjabi upset fancied Anuj Unadkat in a 3-2 thriller and Rutvik Rau, seeded up the ladder, escaped to a 10-12 13-11 5-11 11-9 11-9 win over Arman Jindal.
Aman Parikh rallied from 0-2 to snatch a 9-11 9-11 11-6 11-9 12-10 first round win over fellow Maharastra rival Vedant Ambani but then lost to second seed Utkarsh Baheti of Rajasthan in the next round.

In the boys under-17 first round, Tanay Murdia of Rajasthan registered a hard-fought 14-12 11-4 4-11 8-11 11-9 win over Maharashtra's Pradeep Chaudhary in a tie that could have gone either way.
Jay Patel of Gujarat overcame Akik Kothekar of Maharashtra 3-1 after dropping the opening game over extra points and winning the fourth at 14-12.

Other results (all from Maharashtra unless stated otherwise): Girls U-15 (1st round): Alisha Vohra bt Diya Moolani 8-11 10-12 11-8 11-6 11-5.
Boys U-11 (1st round): Anush Kar bt Mihit Mahale 11-1 11-4 11-9; Jay Vaknalli bt Ali Ahmed Tase 11-1 11-2 11-0; Uday Pandey bt Bhagvan Das 11-3 11-8 11-7; Apoorv Sardesai (Goa) bt Uday Rai 11-3 7-11 11-4 11-4.

Boys U-13 (1st round): Vishal Rajbhar bt Krish Shah 9-11 11-8 11-7 11-9.
Boys U-15 (2nd round): Tushar Shahani bt Kabir Khan 11-4 11-3 11-1; Rahul Baitha bt Jai Raj Singh 9-11 11-7 11-6 11-7.
Boys U-17 (1st round): Aryaman Pandya bt Amav Parikh 11-7 11-5 11-7; Rishabh Jain (Chd) bt Chaitanya Mehra 9-11 9-11 11-2 11-8 11-5.