PROSQUASH
Vol 14 No. 3 Issue No. 55 July 2010
Chief Patron: Harshvardhan Patil (Minister, Govt of Maharashtra) // Founder Director: Mahendra Agarwal // Directors : Narendra Gour (I.R.S.) Navneet Soni (I.R.S.) // Executive Directors: Anil Diggikar (I.A.S), Bharat Bhushan (I.R.S)// Honored Patrons: Vivek Nair (VC & M.D.The Leela), Sajjan Jindal (Chairman & M.D.  JSW Steel Ltd), Eric  Dastur (Chairman, K.M. Dastur Reinsurance Brokers Pvt. Ltd.) // President: Ashish Gupta // Vice President: Noreena Pereira // Secretary General: Sanjay Goyal // Joint Secretary: Vicky Kalludi // Treasurer: Ashok Nagpal // Executive Committee Mem: Saifee Jani, Rakesh Lakhanpal, Madhukar Musle, Organising Secretary: Karan Mehra, Imroze Pathan, Karanjeet Singh // Advisor: Pradeep K. Vijayakar // Chief Executive: Vidhya Rao // Technical Director: Amitoj Inder Singh // Chief Co-ordinator: Riaz Mohammed
    

OTTERS OPEN SQUASH TOURNAMENT 2010
At Otters Club, Bandra                                      (03/07/2010)

 
Talent aplenty at Otters Open                                     By Pradeep Vijayakar


All winners of the tournament with their trophies at the event.


There is future for Indian squash after Ritwik and Saurav. That was the message from the Otters Devotie Squash Open 2010, organized and hosted by Otters Club, Bandra and co-sponsored by HSBC. The two Jangra cousins, Vikas and Sandeep, lit up the show and the icing was India No 3 Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu claiming his biggest jackpot of his career Rupees one lakh for the men's title.

Women’s top seed Saumya Karki of Mumbai earned a double in the absence of the top-notchers Joshna and Deepika. 

Harinderpal overcame fourth seed Vikas Jangra of Navy 11-3, 11-5, 11-8 in the final in 35 minutes. After racing to a 2-0 advantage, Harinderpal trailed 1-4 and 4-8 in the crucial third game when he relaxed his grip. 
Jangra seized the opportunity and showed signs of a comeback with the lead but lost seven points in a row that helped Harinderpal snatch the game and match.

Both the finalists had hovered on the bring in the earlier rounds. Vikram Malhotra. on vacation from his Trinity stint in the USA, all but beat Vikas with amazing variety of strokeplay in the quarter-final. But for being jet-lagged and everything going fuzzy for him, Vikram may have gained the day. Harinder had also virtually lost his semi-final to a classy Sandeep Jangra. But the winners that Jangra played in the first two games he won didn't materialise in last two and allowed Harry to breathe free.

Vikas had caused the big upset by beating top seed Ritwik Bhattacharya in the semis. Ritwik had lost to Saurav when he was favourite in the opening edition of this event some time ago. Ritwik had been in training but less on court and more off court on the sands. 

The tournament will be remembered for Otters Club players gaining their limelight after quite some time. The best of them was 15-year-old Sachika Balvani who shocked Ankita Sharma in the women's semi-final with a confident display in a match that was marred by complaints about obstruction. The other Otters winners were Veer Chotrani who has made the under-9 event in city squash his own domain. He beat his Otters Club teammate Advait Adik in a gripping five-setter. Veer showed he is game to handle the big boys also when taking Dev Vazirani to five sets in the U-11 semi-finals.

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