Chennai: The Squash Rackets Federation of India (SRFI) has decided to curtail the entries (boys and girls) from India this year to the British Junior Open, considered the premier international squash event for juniors and held every January, to nine in all.
Considering that this is a prestigious tournament, the Federation believed it was time participation from the country should be restricted to the best performers of the year. Accordingly it has decided to pick five players with the best record not only in the national but Asian championship in 2019 for participation with financial benevolence from the Government. Another four who are all national champions in various age categories have been given the nod for participation at own cost.
In previous years, said Mr Cyrus Poncha, the Secretary General of SRFI, entry of any young player who had a fairly good ranking would get accepted and routed through the Federation. Last year in fact 25 players had been to Birmingham for the event but “we decided in keeping with the high status of the tournament, it would reflect Indian squash better by having the excellent performers of the year alone participating,” he added.
In keeping with this criteria, the following selections have been made for this year’s event:
Players to be funded by Government: 1.Veer Chotrani (Asian U-19 winner, 2019), did not participate in national; SRFI ranked 2. Yash Fadte(Asian U-19 silver medallist,2019), national champion, SRFI rank 1; 3.Neel Joshi (Asian U-17 silver medallist, 2019, national champion, SRFI rank 1; 4. Sanya Vats(Asian girls U-19 silver medallist, national champion, SRFI rank 1); 5. Anahat Singh (Asian U-13 silver medallist, national champion, SRFI rank 1)
Players to participate at own cost: 1. Yuvraj Wadhwani (boys U-15 national champion, SRFI rank 1); 2. Aishwarya Khubchandani ( girls U-17 national champion, SRFI rank 1); 3. Tiana Parasrampuria(girls U-15 national champion, SRFI rank 1); 4. Darshil Parasrampuria (boys U-11 national champion, SRFI rank 2)
