Last American Hope Falls
Aug 19, 2004, By Rob Dinerman; SquashTalk Independent News Service © 2004; local reporting by Chris Smith, Team Asst Coach

[individual draw/results]

World Junior Individuals: American Day Three Report
U. S. team captain Chris Gordon, the only squad member to make it to the round of 16 in the 2004 World Junior Championships in Islamabad, was eliminated this afternoon by three/four seeded Farhan Mehboob of Pakistan. In garnering his 9-4, 4 and 5 victory and thereby becoming the fourth entrant from the host country (with a fifth possibly due to join them later today) to attain the quarter-finals round, Mehboob started strongly (jumping out to an 8-0 lead in the first game), became embroiled in a titanic struggle for control in mid-second and managed both to finally break away in that game and decisively close out the third.

As was true of Gordon's 9-0 10-9 9-5 round of 32 win yesterday over Dutch stand-out Sebastian Weenink, the match had its defining moment in the second game. In the case of today's encounter, that meant an amazing extended period during which Gordon and Mehboob were deadlocked at 3-3 through EIGHTEEN consecutive hand-outs, with neither player able to notch his fourth point. Often in such a fierce stand-off, the player who finally breaks through thereby garners enough of a psychological edge to quickly add additional points to his total, and that is what happened in this case as well.

The third game was the shortest of the match, but it also contained some of its best shot-making and gets as the young Pakistani star joined several of his teammates in the quarters and thereby kept fully alive the possibility that the semi-finals might become an all-Pakistani affair. This looming scenario got its biggest boost of the day when Basit Ashfaq pulled off an upset win over No. 1 tournament seed Saurav Ghosal of India. Unsurprisingly, Pakistan is the No. 1 seed for the team event, which begins August 22nd immediately after the Individuals concludes.

In other American action, Joe Raho got his first win of the tournament when he defeated Mohammad Jahn of Iran by a score of 9-6, 3 and 3 in the Plate Consolation. Both he and Suleyman Saleem (who got a bye today in the same flight) will be playing tomorrow while Gordon and Garnett Booth point for the team event. Police escorts and security guards with rifles have been a constant presence throughout this event, but the atmosphere around the actual games has been welcoming and exciting, and the level of squash has been exceptional from Day One.

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