Coppinger
Captures Finnish Open Crown
South Africa's
Stephen Coppinger scored his second upset in 24 hours to win the
Savcor Finnish Open, the PSA World Tour Challenger 15 squash event at
the Sport Forum in Mikkeli, Finland.
It was after
dismissing Egypt's No2 seed Omar Abdel Aziz in straight games in the
semi-finals that Coppinger, the third seed, reached the 11th Tour final of his
career - where he faced Joey Barrington.
In the other
semi, the English favourite had recovered from two games down to overcome
unseeded Bradley Hindle, from Malta, to reach his 17th final.
Barrington
made a good start to the game, leading 5-0 and 7-3 before finally surviving
15-13.
But the
26-year-old from Cape Town fought back to take the second game and was level at
six-all in the third when it became clear that Barrington was suffering some
problems with the back of his thigh.
Coppinger took
the game and, with the Englishman barely able to compete in the fourth, went on
to clinch his 13-15, 11-5, 11-8, 11-5 victory after 67 minutes.
"Of course I'm
happy with the title, but it's never nice to win when your opponent is injured,"
said the Finnish Open's first ever South African champion after
collecting the sixth PSA Tour title of his career.
Bradley
Survives Marathon To Make Mikkeli Semis
Malta's
unseeded Bradley Hindle battled for 111 minutes to claim an unexpected
place in the semi-finals of the Savcor Finnish Open, the PSA
World Tour Challenger 15 squash event at the Sport Forum in
Mikkeli, Finland.
Hindle came
back from 2/1 down to overcome Italian Davide Bianchetti 8-11, 11-4,
8-11, 11-7, 11-8.
The
Australian-born 30-year-old will now face top seed Joey Barrington for a
place in the final.
Barrington,
the world No35 from England, prevailed in his second straight games win in the
event, beating fellow countryman Jonathan Harford, a qualifier, 11-7,
11-9, 11-2.
Finnish
interest in the event was led by Henrik Mustonen, a 20-year-old from
Hollola who is ranked 64 in the world.
"The quarter
was the one the home crowd had been waiting for," said event spokesman Poku
Salo. "Unfortunately it was let down by a brilliant performance from
Stephen Coppinger. Mustonen was forced to make a lot of errors while
Coppinger managed to make only one or two."
Coppinger
secured an 11-4, 11-3, 11-4 victory which takes the third seed from South Africa
through to a semi-final clash with Egypt's second seed Omar Abdel Aziz.
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