Leo Au defeated Jamie Haycocks in a sublime 3-0 victory to win the 2014
Pro Squash Tokyo, PSA Challenger 10 title at Spa Shirokane in front of a
delighted crowd.
Au was in fantastic form throughout the event, dropping just two games
on his way to the final. Haycocks was similarly impressive, making it
all the way to the final without losing a single game, but Au was just
too much for him on the day and stormed to his sixth career title on the
PSA World Tour.
The first game was one-sided with Au, who knocked Haycocks out of this
year’s Canary Wharf Squash Classic, taking it 11-3. Haycocks needed to
pick his game up and did exactly that, forcing Au onto the defensive
with some well-placed drop shots however the Hong Kong man came back
with a barrage of sublime play to take a tightly-contested second game
by an 11-9 margin.
At 30-years-old, Haycocks is an experienced competitor and the number
two seed battled hard against Au but the World No.37 remained calm and
won the final game 11-5 to take the victory and his first Tour title
since January’s Bankers Hall Club Pro Am.
The tournament was home to a big shock in the quarter-final, when
Australian number three seed Matthew Karwalski fell to World No. 111
James Huang. The 29-year-old who hails from Taiwan proved a determined
competitor against his opponent, who was ranked fifty places above him
in the world, and won with an impressive 3-1 victory.
Huang’s progress was cut short though in the semi-final by Haycocks who
dispatched him 3-0 with each game ending in an 11-7 win for the
Englishman.
Number six seed Tom Ford, also from England, put in a good performance
making it all the way to the semi-final. He overcame wildcard Taiki
Kaido in the first round before breezing past Aqeel Rehman in the
quarters and he proved staunch competition against Au in the semi-final
and was unlucky to lose the first game which Au won narrowly 15-13. Ford
couldn’t maintain his performance though and Au ended his progress by
defeating the World No. 89 in a 3-0 victory.
Indeed that was the closest Au came to losing a game, with the exception
of his match against Tsz Fung Yip in the quarter-final, who managed to
take two games off of the eventual winner.
