World No.1 Nicol stays on top of her game

PETALING JAYA: The vintage performances from reigning world champion Nicol David in the CIMB Malaysian Open squash tournament has set the right tone for another round of success stories for the second half of the year. Nicol has now won four titles thus far this year. She had emerged as the champion in the KL Open (March), Kuwait Open and Qatar Classic (April). She also reached the final of the Seoul City Open in April.

Nicol is expected to pace herself in upcoming tournaments in the next few months to gear up for the defence of the World Open title in Madrid from Oct 23-27. Her next tournament is the inaugural Singapore Masters, beginning on Wednesday.

After a three-month break, Nicol was expected to be rusty in the Malaysian Open but she proved otherwise. All her matches were rather one-sided affairs except for the semi-final against Australia's Rachael Grinham on Friday. She fought back from a first set drubbing to tame the third-seeded Rachael 0-9, 9-2, 9-5, 4-9, 9-4 in 72 minutes.

The fireworks expected in the final against the younger Grinham, Natalie, failed to materialise.
England’s Tania Bailey ousted Natalie, the world number two, in the semi-finals.
Natalie was affected by an Achilles injury sustained during the quarter-final match against England’s Jenny Duncalf on Thursday. Bailey, the fourth seed, was no match for Nicol in the final. The Malaysian ace romped to a 9-4, 9-3, 9-2 win on Saturday. Nicol's coach Liz Irving said: “We have been working on a few things over the past few months. From my observations, Nicol has been able to integrate it into her game.

“The tough semi-final match against Rachael is what she needed most. I was not overly concerned about her losing 0-9 in the first set. Mentally, Nicol is very strong.

“Her focus was on and off during the match but it was a good win.

“Among Nicol's main tournaments for the rest of the year will be the British Open (Sept 21-24) and the World Open. All her other tournaments will be used to gear up for them.”

Meanwhile, Mohd Azlan Iskandar has given himself a boost in his bid to reach the top 10 of the world rankings by the end of the year after clinching the Malaysia Open title for the second time.
Azlan, the world number 19 and seeded fifth, knocked out three higher ranked players. He eliminated England's Adrian Grant, the third seed and defending champion, in the quarter-finals.
Azlan, a winner in 2004 later upstaged second seed Lee Beachill of England in the semi-finals and shocked top seed Australian Stewart Boswell in the final.

Proud to be Malaysia because of you two ! Bravo !