Vijay storms to Semi-Finals

The top gun of the tournament marched to the semi-finals, as Vijay Kumar overcame the home crowd favourite Abhinav Sinha, to set up a clash with first seed Ravi Dixit. Vijay Kumar eliminated the threat posed by Pune no.1 and giantkiller Abhinav Sinha, in a 30-minute clash. The Puneite was defeated 11-8,11-6,11-3.

There was a massive crowd turnout here at Poona Club for the first quarter-final.The entire squashing group of Pune arrived at Poona Club to egg on Abhinav Sinha against the fourth seed Vijay Kumar. In the first game, there were long, brutal rallies, with both players waiting for the errors out of each other. Vijay Kumar made some unforced errors and handed some loose shots to Abhinav in the beginning of the game. The Puneite took advantage of them and fired some quick winners to lead 6-3. Though the fourth seed denied Abhinav an easy victory, Vijay Kumar reversed the pressure onto the Abhinav, by holding the ball to reduce the response time for Abhinav and pushing Abhinav around the court. This tired out Abhinav and forced the errors out of him to propel Vijay Kumar to 8-6. Vijay Kumar continued in the same fashion to take the set 11-8.

In the second set,Vijay Kumar took an early lead and Abhinav was trailing 1-5. Though both players made uncharacteristic errors and Vijay Kumar had changed his pace and format to startle Abhinav. This allowed Vijay to take the set effortlessly at 11-6.

Later in the third set, Vijay Kumar began to display a completely different style of play as he had changed his tactical strategy to make himself attack on the ball. Vijay Kumar began to volley the shots early at the T, and was pouncing onto the open,loose drives to push the ball into the front corners of the court. Vijay Kumar attacked mercilessly on the shots and was making Abhinav do some gruelling retrievals,which unfortunately yielded little benefit. Vijay Kumar used his soft touch to execute some scintillating drops with precision. Vijay took the set and match comfortably at 11-3 as he took his game a few notches above. Though Abhinav Sinha, who is also ranked 321 in the world rankings played a very mature game and he won the hearts of the crowd,as the crowd gave a standing ovation to the two players.

Vijay Kumar will face first seed Ravi Dixit on Monday,who made it to the semi-finals by a victory over Abhishek Agarwal in the quarter-final. Ravi Dixit was forced into the tie-break into the two sets by Abhishek Agarwal. The first seed overcame Abhishek Agarwal 11-7,12-10,13-11 in a match which was too close for comfort. In the other semi-final which is also on Monday, Gaurav Nandrajog and Sandeep Jangra(the second and the third seeds respectively) are to battle to make it to the final of the prestigious Pune Open Seniors Squash Championship which is also on Tuesday.