HONG KONG—The 5th HKFC PSA International 25 squash competition hosted by the Hong Kong Football Club took place between Wednesday May 25 and Saturday May 28. A total of 16 players for both the men’s and women’s events were included in the main draw, 12 were preselected with 4 additional players progressing from the Qualifying draws held on Monday and Tuesday May 23-24.
Top seed Max Lee of Hong Kong succumbed in round 1 to Qualifier Ivan Yuen of Malaysia who continued to progress through the tournament to the semi-final stage but finally fell to 5th seed Paul Coll of New Zealand in an 82 minute 5 set match. At the bottom of the men’s draw, Hong Kong’s Leo Au (seeded 2) also progressed to the Semi-final but then met an in-form Nafiizwan Adnan of Malaysia (seeded 3) who took the game 3-0.
Adnan sailed through the tournament winning his matches to the final in straight games taking out Mahesh Mangaonkar of India, Mazen Gamal of Egypt and then Leo Au, much to the disappointment of the local supporters. Adnan continued with his match winning heroics beating Coll 11-6, 11-8, 11-8 in the final. Coll put up a solid performance but his long match against Ivan Yuen, the night before, likely played a part.
