Scotland send Malaysia packing
INEXPERIENCE cost Malaysia dear as a young national squash side tumbled out of the last-16 at the men's World Team Championship following a 2-1 defeat to Scotland in Marseille yesterday.
Despite national No 1 Nafiizwan Adnan maintaining his 100 per cent record after three matches, youngsters Ng Eain Yow and Syafiq Kamal battled hard in a valiant but futile effort to get to the quarter-finals.
It was the first time Malaysia failed to make the last-eight since 2009 and the team will now play in the ninth-16th classification playoffs.
World No 65 Eain Yow, playing in his maiden world team meet, found the going tough against 40th-ranked Greg Lobban in the opening match as the 2016 world junior champion suffered his first defeat in three matches, 11-9, 5-11, 11-9, 11-7.
Nafiizwan, ranked 31st in the world, revived Malaysia's hopes with a battling 11-7, 1-11, 8-11, 11-3, 11-8 win over World No 24 Alan Clyne, the third consecutive match Nafiizwan was stretched to five games.
The second round tie came down to the third-string match between World No 94 Syafiq Kamal and 101st-ranked Douglas Kempsell, who came out on top 113, 3-11, 11-5, 10-12, 11-6 to send Scotland through to a quarterfinal meeting with top seeds Egypt.
Malaysia, who defeated India (2-1) and Austria (3-0) in the preliminary round, were playing Finland in a ninth-16th playoff match late last night. Devinder Singh