Poleshchuk
Celebrates Historic Israeli Tour Triumph
Teenager Daniel Poleshchuk secured a place in squash history by
surviving a marathon Global Relocations Israel Open final in
Herzliya to become the first Israeli player to win a Tour title.
The 19-year-old from Ramat-Gan first had to negotiate a route
through the qualifying competition of the PSA Challenger 5 event at
Herzliya Squash Club - then downed fourth seed Christophe Andre, the
2014 runner-up, and England's No.7 seed Oliver Pett en-route to
earning his maiden appearance in a PSA World Tour final.
The qualifier's opponent was experienced Frenchman Geoffrey Demont,
the No.2 seed from Aix-en-Provence who was celebrating his fourth
Tour final.
World No.99 Demont took the opening two games, but the young local
hero refused to give up.
Ranked exactly 100 places behind the 23-year-old Frenchman,
Poleshchuk battled hard to draw level - then forced the decider to a
tie-break.
Urged on by the partisan crowd, Poleshchuk clinched his sensational
6-11, 6-11, 11-7, 11-3, 13-11 victory after 86 minutes to claim his
place in squash history.
"I did it!" exclaimed the 19-year-old. "I won my first ever PSA
title after being 2/0 and 6-2 down - I managed to come back and win
13-11 in the fifth!!!
"I want to thank Nadav Wilensky for being there for me during the
whole tournament; my coach in Poland Maciek Kils; my family; and all
my friends who were supporting me during this epic final!!"
It was a despondent Demont who later told his Twitter followers:
"Very disappointed to lose my match today after leading 2/0 and
6/3... Tough crowd... Congrats @danisquash1996 for your first title
on tour"
