Double Christmas delight for Delia
KL lass wins women’s and mixed doubles squash titles
KUALA LUMPUR: It was a double Christmas delight for national number two women’s squash player, Delia Arnold when she secured the women’s doubles and mixed doubles titles at the inaugural Ohana Malaysia Doubles Open Championships yesterday.
The 30-year-old first partnered her younger sister Rachel, 20, to secure the women’s doubles title by edging juniors Chan Yiwen/S. Sivasangari 11-5, 7-11, 11-8.
The Kuala Lumpur born later teamed up with another national player, Sarawakian Sanjay Singh Chal to defeat Mohd Syafiq Kamal/Sivasangari 11-10, 5-11, 11-9 and create history as the first winner of both titles.
“This is definitely a great Christmas present for me. It will surely light up our Christmas celebration.
“In the women’s doubles ChanSivasangari had good killing shots and made us struggle a bit, but at the end we managed to win,” she told reporters.
Third place in the women’s doubles was won by second seeded Aifa Azman/Andrea Lee after outclassing Aika Azman/Lai Wen Li 11-8, 11-6.
In the men’s doubles, the country’s top two players, Ivan Yuen/Mohd Nafiizwan Adnan failed to overcome top seeds Zac Alenxander/ Rex Hendrick of Australia.
After losing the first set 6-11, the second seeds managed to win the second set 11-10 after a neck to neck fight but went down 8-11 in the decider after an intense battle.
National champion Mohd Nafiizwan cited lack of experience in playing doubles as one of the reasons for the defeat.
“I feel we played well today despite partnering for the first time.
We lost in close battle...I think we need to train together and spend more time playing doubles,” he said.
Ivan said the partnership had good potential to represent the country in the upcoming 2017 SEA Games and 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast, Australia.
Third place was secured by Eain Yow/Mohd Syafiq after easily defeating Addeen Idrakie/Sanjay Singh 11-4, 11-7.
Besides medals, the title winning pairs received RM3,000 while second and third placed pairs received RM1,500 and RM1,000 respectively. — Bernama