Big names to vie for honours at Indian Open

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For the first time a junior team from Nepal will take part in an international squash event when the third Indian Junior Open squash begins here at the ISA from Tuesday. The event has attracted 295 players from seven countries.

The five-day tournament offers a purse of $10,000 and the field includes players from Hong Kong (17), Malaysia (4), Sri Lanka (16), Jordan (4), Nepal (4) and the US (1) besides hosts India.

This tournament is an Asian Squash Federation (ASF) Junior Super Series Silver event and part of the World Squash Federation (WSF) Junior circuit organised by the Squash Rackets Federation of India (SRFI) and the Tamil Nadu Squash Rackets Association.

Participants (Under-19 category only) of this event will receive WSF points and ASF ranking points (all categories). There will be 10 age categories — boys and girls under 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19.

India’s Anaka Alankamony, the current Asian junior champion, and Mahesh Mangaonkar, who finished sixth in the recent World junior championship, have been given top billing in the girls’ and boys’ under-19 categories, respectively.

Prominent foreigners include Boys Under-17 Asian Junior champion Ahmad Alsaraj from Jordan along with his brother Mohd Alsaraj who was the runner up at the Asian Junior championship and is the top seed in the boys U-13 section.

Hong Kong players Chan Ho Ching (Girls U-15), Ho Tze Lok (Girls U-17), Ho Ka Po (Girls U-19) and Yuen Tsun Hei (Boys U-15) are all title contenders.