Nicol david enters last 4 of squash tourney

Hyderabad, July 7 (UNI) Reigning World Champion and second seeded Nicol David of Malaysia stormed into the semifinals of the Qatar Airways Challenge WISPA World Tour Squash championship at Falaknuma Palace on the outskirts of the city tonight.

After losing the opening game 4-9, the dimunitive Malaysian displayed some champion stuff to outsmart Alison Waters of England 9-1, 9-2, 9-6 in little under an hour to meet Jenny Duncalf of England in the last four stage.

Earlier in the first quarterfinal, Duncalf defeated her compatriot Vicky Botwright 9-6, 9-10, 9-5, 9-7 in an error prone encounter Putting behind her first game loss, Nicol took time to find her feet in the new glass floor courts. Once she found her touth, she was unstoppable. Moving swiftly on the courts and retrieving almost everything, she hardly gave any chance for her rival. The eighth seeded Alison just failed to match the tenacity of the famed Malaysian and caved in meekly.

Despite forging early leads in the last two games, Alison could not sustain the performance and was repeatedly caught in on the wrong foot by Nicol.

Earlier, in an all England-affair Jenny Duncalf became the first player to enter the last four stage.

Though Duncalf's win could be termed as an upset as she was seeded fifth as against Vicky's fourth, there was nothing much to differentiate between the two players who were ranked sixth and fifth respectively in the WISPA world rankings.

After winning the opening game 9-6, up 6-2, Jenny ran herself into problems committing unforced errors. She also missed a couple of easy shots and was once issued conduct warning for 'Racquet abuse' by the referee. Vicky on the other hand was seemingly unhappy over frequent 'let calls' going against her, resulting in lapse in concentration.

There were errors galore in the 77-minute encounter in which Vicky thrived on her rival's errors to win the second game on extra points, after saving two game points. Having recovered well from an early deficit, Jenny should have wrapped up the game but poor finishing let her down.

She grew in confidence to win the next two games, not before rallying back from 2-7 deficit to knot up the match in style when Vicky hit a low backhand at the tin.

UNI GV VV RP PM2214