German World No.50 Raphael Kandra celebrated his first ever PSA
World Tour win over top seed Omar Abdel Meguid when he defeated the
Egyptian 3-0 in the final of the Stratos Seattle Open, PSA
Challenger 10 tournament.
Kandra, the event’s No.2 seed, reached his 16th PSA World Tour final
after surviving a close five-game semi-final battle with
third-seeded Indian Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu while Meguid, the
world No.33, also prevailed in a marathon semi, seeing off England’s
fourth seed Declan James 10-12, 11-6, 11-9, 12-14, 11-5 after
140-minutes to set up his 17th Tour final.
Ranked 17 places higher and having emerged victorious in their past
two meetings, Meguid was the firm favourite to taste glory in the
final, but Kandra leapt into action from the off to take the first
game 11-6. Meguid, clearly tired after the effort he put in the day
before, found it difficult to build any real momentum and Kandra
took full advantage of that to take the second game by the same
margin.
24-year-old Kandra kept up the assault in the third and powered his
way through 11-6, 11-6, 11-7 to collect his second Tour title of the
year – an achievement only matched so far by Nick Matthew, the world
No.3 from England who last week won his second title of the year at
the PSA World Series Windy City Open in Chicago.
