Adam Murrills (Eng)
11/5, 11/7, 11/4 (28m) Chris Fuller (Eng)
Chris Fuller
11/7, 6/11, 11/8, 11/4 (64m) Greg Lobban
Carlos Cornes (Esp)
12/10, 5/11, 11/9, 11/8 (55m) Adam Murrills (Eng)
Jan van dend Herrewegen (Bel)
10/12, 5/11, 11/1, 11/9, 11/2 (60m)
Arthur Moineau (Fra)
Jan van den Herrewegen (Bel)
11/6, 11/6, 11/5 (21m) Greg Lobban (Sco)
[2] Greg Lobban (Sco)
w/o
Damien Volland (Fra)
Mahesh Makes Bratislava Breakthrough
Five-game victories over the event's top two seeds led to Mahesh
Mangaonkar becoming the first Indian winner of the PSA IMET Open,
the PSA World Tour Challenger 5 squash event marking its sixth
year at the Imet Squash Centrum in the Slovakia capital
Bratislava.
The
19-year-old World No.98 from Mumbai made his breakthrough in the
semi-finals where he downed two-time champion Jan Koukal, the top
seed from the Czech Republic expected to make his fourth final
appearance in six years, 13-11, 11-8, 9-11, 7-11, 13-11 in 98 minutes.
Third
seed Mangaonkar then lined up against defending champion Greg Lobban,
the No.2 seed from Scotland who was celebrating his third successive
appearance in a Tour final.
Despite his heroics less than 24 hours earlier, the Indian teenager was
still able to call upon reserves to recover from losing the first game
to take a 2/1 lead.
Edinburgh-based Lobban, ranked 82 in the world, dug deep to take the
fourth to force a fifth game decider.
But
Mangaonkar (pictured above in action with Lobban) refused to give
up, reclaiming the advantage to close out the match 7-11, 11-8, 11-4,
6-11, 11-7 after 77 minutes to take the title.
"The
turning point of this final was in the second set, where I started to
move properly on the court," said the jubilant champion after the second
Tour title triumph of his career.
"I was
happy to win the third, rested a bit in fourth and fought back in fifth.
Squash is also a mental game and I gave it all I had in the final set."
