Squash: Kush Kumar bags first gold for India at Asian Youth Games 2013

17-year-old Kush Kumar, a trainee at the Indian Squash Academy, Chennai, becomes the first Indian to win a gold medal at the second Asian Youth Games 2013 being held in Nanjing, China.

[1] Kush Kumar (AOI) beat [2] Syafiq Kamal (Mas) 11/9, 5/11, 11/9, 11/7 in the final- a match that lasted three minutes short of an hour.

Kush started off well with an aggressive pace, but was being caught time and again by Shafeeq’s delicate drops and some awesome deceptive play.

However, Kush managed to narrowly win the first. The second was an almost one-sided affair with Syafiq putting the ball away at will.

In the third, Kush was 8-3 down but he reverted to a simple basic game at medium pace. One long lung-busting rally took toll on the Malaysian as Syafiq surrendered a few easy points and the game to hand Kush vital lead in the summit clash.

Kush maintained the same medium-paced game to clinch the fourth game and the first gold for India at the Games.

Kush was delighted after the match and said: “I had to push very hard when I was 3-8 in the 3rd game, and because of the training given at the ISA, I was able to keep my focus and win. I want to thank all my sponsors, my coaches at ISA, and the federation for all their support.”

“It is truly a great achievement for an India winning a gold medal at these games. I am sure we are only going to get better,” said National Coach Cyrus Poncha.

Mr. N. Ramachandran, WSF President, said: “My heartiest congratulations to both Malaysia and India for winning individual Gold medals in the girls and boys categories respectively. The Youth Games is a fantastic event for our budding champions.

The girls finals was played first between Hong Kong’s Pansy Chan, the 2nd seed, and Malaysia’s top seed Vanessa Raj, which was won by the latter.