Iskandar Tested in 1st Round
April 23, 2005, by Martin Bronstein
SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2005 all Rights Reserved;

ISKANDAR GETS A WRIGHT SCARE
When Azlan Iskandar, the Malaysian champion, was leading England’s second ranked junior, James Wright, by two games and 9-2 he made the mistake of relaxing. Wright needed no second bidding and jumped in to win the third game 11-9, run away with the fourth game 11-1 and put up a huge fight in the fifth before going down 6-11, in the first round of the Colets Open at Colets Health and Fitness Club in Thames Ditton, Surrey.

The longest match of the second round was a Young vs Old encounter between 22 year old Daryl Selby and 35 year old Stephen Meads. The first two games took nearly sixty minutes with Selby, who took time out of his squash career to get a degree from Loughborough University, taking the marathon second game 18-16. The third game was marked by a confrontation with the referee when both players decided that the decisions were simply too bad to accept and a new referee was brought. In the end it was Mead’s ability to keep up the pace and accuracy that gave him the victory after over 90 minutes.

In another battle of the ages, Simon Parke, seeded 3/4 , the British junior champion 14 years ago, faced the current European and British Junior champion Chris Simpson. Despite suffering from knee problems that had him wincing whenever he pushed off on right leg, Simpson battled on pushing Parke to a tie break in the first game before losing 12-10. He lost the second game but, to the surprise of everyone, took the third game 11-9. Parke’s greater experience saw him through to win the fourth

Top seed Anthony Ricketts, the world number seven, at a hearty lunch minutes before going on against South African Jason Berry. The first game was played in overdrive with both player pasting the ball and Berry giving a very good account of himself. But he was never going to keep up the pace and by the third game was running on empty to lose 11-0.

Second seed Adrian Grant, who survived a horrific car crash a week ago when he had to be cut out of his upturned car, demonstrated that he was almost back to normal when he beat Sam Howell in their first round encounter. He said he felt much better than yesterday when he played his qualifying match “ in a complete daze”.

BSPA HEAD GRAND PRIX SERIES
COLETS OPEN
COLETS HEALTH AND FITNESS CLUB, THAMES DITTON SURREY
Results Friday April 22 2005

FIRST ROUND RESULTS
[1] Anthony Ricketts bt Jason Barry 11-7, 11-7, 11-0.
Ben Ford bt Tim Arnold 121-7, 11-9, 4-11, 11-9.
Stacy Ross bt Tom Richards 11-5, 11-8, 11-3.
Scott Handley bt James Robbins 11-5, 11-6, 11-8
Alex Gough bt Darren Lewis 11-7, 8-11, 11-4, 2-11, 11-7.
Joey Barrington bt Jethro Binns 11-4, 11-8, 11-6.
Paul Rawdon bt Alistari McGill 8-11, 8-11, 11-10 (4-2), 11-7 1-4 retired.
[3/4]Simon Parke vs Chris Simpson 11-10 (2-0), 9-11, 11-7.
[3/4]Moh Azlan Iskandar bt James Wright 11-9, 11-9, 9-11, 1-11, 11-6
Ben Garner bt Jamie Matthews 11-9, 11-4, 11-5.
Danny Meddings bt Shahid Khan 11-8, 11-6, 11-5.
Steve Coppinger bt Alex Ingham 11-4, 11-2, 11-3.
Steven Meads bt Daryl Selby 11-8, 10-11 (8-6) 11-9, 11-1.
Iain Higgins bt Sam Miller 11-8, 11-6, 10-11 (2-0), 8-11, 11-6.
Peter Genever bt Rory Pennell 11-5, 11-6, 11-6.
[2]Adrian Grant bt Sam Howell 11-4, 11-4, 11-3.

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