World Junior Squash Championship from today

The individual phase will be held from July 18 to July 23, while the team event will run across six days, from July 24 to July 29. The initial rounds will take place at the Indian Squash Academy, with the later rounds slated to be hosted at the Express Avenue Mall.

The 12-day event is co-hosted by the Squash Rackets Federation of India (SRFI) and the Tamil Nadu Squash Rackets Association. The Indian contingent consists of 12 members, six junior men and six junior women, with none being a part of the seedings list. Goa’s Yash Fadte will lead the charge in the men’s category. Veer Chotrani, Utkarsh Baheti, Rahul Baitha, Sankalp Anand and Advait Adik are the other Indians in the fray.

In the women’s category, local lass Ashita Bhengra will look to finish on a high as this will be her last junior event. 16-year-old Sanya Vats, Yoshna Singh, Aishwarya Khubchandini, Jania Singh and Ananya Dabke make up the rest of the chart.

“Wishing the very best of luck for the Indian contingent at the World Junior Championship. The biggest goal is to always represent the country. Enjoy yourselves out there, fight hard and play hard,” was Dipika Pallikal’s message in a video posted by SRFI’s official twitter handle.  

Heavyweight Egypt will be raring to go for the full monty this time around, having settled for silver in the team event during the previous edition in Poland (2016). The top four seeds in men’s juniors and the top two seeds in the women’s juniors are from the African nation. Marwan Tarek and Rowan Reda Araby, top seeds in boys and girls respectively, will look to make it two in a row. The home support could help the Indians cause an upset or two during the course of the World Juniors.