Team USA’s 2018 World Junior Championships campaign is underway with the Men’s and Women’s World Junior Individual Championships, July 18-23, at the Indian Squash Center in Chennai, the sixth largest city in India.
Twelve Americans, six boys and six girls, are competing in the 128-player boys’ draw and sixty-four-player girls’ draws. View both draws and follow all results on the World Junior Championships tournament page.
After two days of play, both main draws have whittled down to the last sixteen. Marina Stefanoni is the lone American left in either main draw, with the 5/8 seed recording a four-game opening victory against Australia’s Alexandra Haydon to advance to the round of sixteen. Stefanoni’s will vie for a spot in the quarterfinals against Scotland’s 9/12 seed Georgia Adderley on Friday at 11:40am local time, 1:40am EDT. A victory would see Stefanoni set up a quarterfinal clash against Egypt’s two seed Hania El Hammamy.
Four members of Team USA recorded first round victories before exiting the main draw in the second round. In the girls’ draw, Elle Ruggiero won her first round match in three games before falling against Egypt’s 5/8 seed Jana Shiha. Laila Sedky edged a four-game win against her Kiwi opponent in the first round, and exited the main draw against England’s 3/4 seed Lucy Turmel. Sedky, Ruggiero, Elisabeth Ross, Meghna Sreedhar and Caroline Spahr all move on to consolation play.
In the boys’ draw, Tiber Worth and Thomas Rosini both won three-game opening matches to reach the second round where they exited the main draw. 9/12 seed Daelum Mawji advanced to the third round following a bye and three-game victory over Hong Kong’s Chain Chi Ho. Mawji then fell in a close three-games against Canada’s James Flynn, ending his main draw run.
Mawji, Worth, Rosini and Ayush Menon will continue play in the consolation draws as the four boys’ play to improve the team seeding for the ensuing Men’s World Junior Team Championship, July 24-29.
Matches will be streamed live from two courts on the World Junior Championships website. Follow @TeamUSASquash and @WSFWorldJuniors on Twitter for updates throughout the tournament.
For more tournament coverage visit wsfworldjuniors.com.