While Malaysia's Nicol David celebrated a remarkable fourth
Squash gold medal in the 17th Incheon Asian Games in the
Republic of Korea, it was a historic first gold for Kuwait when
underdog Abdullah Al Muzayen recovered from 2/0 down to
topple top seed Saurav Ghosal in the men's final at the
Yeorumul Squash Centre in Incheon.
Nicol David,
who has topped the women's world rankings unopposed since August
2006, won her first Asian Games gold medal in Thailand in 1998 -
aged just 15 - then triumphed again in 2006 in Qatar and 2010 in
China.
In
her fifth successive final, but the first all-Malaysian, the
31-year-old from Penang recovered from a game behind to beat fellow
Penangite Low Wee Wern, the No2 seed, 9-11, 11-6, 11-5, 12-10
in 60 minutes.
"They are all very different," David (pictured above, second
left, at the medal ceremony) told Reuters of her
Asian Games gold medal haul. "Every medal had a different
significance to it."
Al
Muzayen was making only his second appearance in the Asian Games
after reaching the quarter-finals in 2010. The 26-year-old 5/8 seed
began his giant-killing Incheon run in the quarter-finals, beating
Malaysia's 3/4 seed Mohd Nafiizwan Adnan before removing Hong
Kong's second seed Max Lee in a 75-minute semi which went the
full distance.
In
his first victory over Ghosal for more than six years, the Kuwaiti
left-hander fought back from two games and match-ball down in the
third to beat the world No16 from India 10-12, 2-11, 14-12, 11-8,
11-9 in 87 minutes.
"It was a tough match for me," the world No46 (pictured above in
action with Ghosal) told Inside The Games
afterwards. "When I was down two love, I said to my coach that I'm
done.
"But during the third game, I did not give up and I wanted to get
that chance to come back to the game."
