Tougher road for Malaysian men in Asian meet
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian men have a tougher road to the final compared to their women counterparts, but hopes will be on national number one Ng Eain Yow and veteran Mohd Nafiizwan Mohd Adnan to spring some upsets at the 20th Asian Individual Squash Championships at the National Squash Centre, Bukit Jalil, from May 1 to 5.
World No 37 Eain Yow, Mohd Nafiizwan and Ivan Yuen have been seeded joint fifth-eighth. All three have been given first-round byes.
Drawn in the top half of the draw, Eain Yow, 21, is slated to meet defending champion Max Lee of Hong Kong in the quarter-finals.
Eain Yow lost to Leo Au of Hong Kong in the round of 16 in the 2017 edition of the Asian meet, which was held in Chennai.
However, he has shown strong performances of late and did well to reach the quarter-finals of the Macau Open earlier this month, where he defeated Mohd Nafiizwan in five sets in the second round.
The hot favourite for the men's title is India's Saurav Ghosal. The 32-year-old is enjoying a purple patch in his career, having powered to a career-high ranking of number 10 in the world this month.
But the Indian has a poor record in regional meets. He blew his chance and settled for silver at the 2014 Asian Games and also lost in the final of the 2017 Asian Individual Championships to Leo Au.
Thus, Saurav would be hungry and desperate to nail this Asian title to get the monkey off his back. He opens his campaign against either Ali Alshammiri of Kuwait or David Pelino of the Philippines in the second round on Wednesday.
But it will not be a walk in the park for Saurav as Hong Kong have sent a strong team featuring three players seeded in the top four, led by world number 21 Yip Tsz Fung.
Joining Tsz Fung is Max Lee, who is world number 22, and Leo Au, who is at 24th. Both are seeded joint third and fourth respectively and should reach the semi-finals.
In the women's competition, Malaysia's leading player Low Wee Wern is seeded fourth and placed in the same bracket as Annie Au of Hong Kong.
The 28-year-old Penangite, who reached the final in Macau, will be eager to put two years of nightmare recovering from knee surgery behind her when she faces local lass Chan Yiwen in the second round.
The dark horse of the women's competition is, however, national champion S. Sivasangari.
The Asian Games silver medallist is seeded sixth and starts against Pranghatai Phongrattana of Thailand in the second round and should ease through to the quarterfinals, where she is expected to meet Joey Chan of Hong Kong.