Indian-origin American boy Anay Sawant and Tanish Vaidya of Maharashtra scored contrasting wins in the under-11 opening round qualifying matches of the Rs 6.5 lakh prize-money NSCI Indian Classic Junior Open Squash Championship today.
The eight-year-old boy from Burlingame, California, made a strong start as he recovered from the loss of the first game to brush aside Dhruv Khanna from Maharashtra in four games, coasting to a 8-11 11-3 11-6 11-8 victory to advance to the second round.
He would next take on another Maharashtra player Adhish Kancharia, who had a bye in the first round.
Vaidya overcame a stiff challenge from Tamil Nadu's Magizhan S in an absorbing five-game thriller.
He held his nerves in the decider and win it over extra points to complete a 11-8 8-11 11-2 7-11 12-10 win and progress to a second round meeting with Karnataka's Pranav Bhalla who downed Ayaan Kuchhal of Rajashtan 11-7 11-7 11-4.
In another match, Mishaal Vaswani of Maharashtra got the better of state-mate Shreyansh Agrawal 9-11 11-7 11-6 12-14 11-7.
In boys' under-17, Maharashtra's Rahul Dharra tamed Aryan Steve Rybin of Tamil Nadu 11-4 11-2 11-2 to make it to the second qualifying round while Rahul Mehta of Maharashtra went down to Vipul Sharma of Uttar Pradesh 8-11 6-11 11-9 5-11.
