Nicol, Nafiizwan advance

expected, Malaysia’s squash queen Nicol David had no problems getting through her quarter-final tie as she managed to overcome her Japanese opponent yesterday.

Nicol registered a comfortable 11-6, 11-4, 11-3 win over Satomi Watanabe to move into the semifinals against India’s Dipika Karthik today.

The defending champion had a relatively easy match against her Japanese opponent as she also won her earlier match on Thursday without any glitches after receiving a bye.

“My opponent did not give much of a fight but then again I want to see more young and upcoming players taking part in international competitions such as this,” said Nicol.

Nicol started rather tamely as she familiarised herself with the court which was not in the best of conditions for competition.

Another national player, S. Sivasangari was made to sweat though as she battled a five-game thriller against Hong Kong’s Au Wing Chi before emerging as the victor, prevailing 3-2.

In the men’s competition, Ivan Yuen failed to get past Hong Kong’s Au Chung Ming as he went down 2-11, 7-11, 4-11.

National No 1 men’s player Mohd Nafiizwan Adnan, on the other hand, was stretched in his match against Qatar’s Abdullah AlTamimi, but he prevailed to notch a hard fought 11-9, 12-10, 9-11, 5-11, 11-9 win.