Ireland’s interest in the BU19 World Squash Junior Championships title ended on Tuesday with Aaron Knox and Christian Dromgoole both eliminated in the round of 64.
Knox and Dromgoole had enjoyed confident starts at the tournament on Monday, respectively winning their round of 128 matches 3-1 and 3-0 to set up round two matches with Indian duo Arihant KS and Yusha Nafees, who were both 17/32 seeds.
Knox was first in action on Tuesday, and he suffered a 0-3 loss to Arihant in a match where the prize for the winner was a round of 32 clash with No.1 seed Mohamed Zakaria. The Egyptian is the defending junior champion from Houston 2024 and is ranked 14th on the PSA men’s tour.
Zakaria defeated Samuel Winkler of Austria 3-0 in his first match at the tournament and then beat Arihant 3-0 later in the day. Knox will now play the Austrian on Wednesday in the Special Plate section.
Dromgoole, meanwhile, was beaten 0-3 in his round of 64 clash with Yusha Nafees, denying him a round of 32 showdown with the Colombian, Juan Irisarri [5/8]. Next is a Special Plate fixture on Wednesday against Chanyoung Kim, the Korean beaten 1-3 by Irisarri.
In the Plate competition, Ireland endured a difficult Tuesday as Danny Lynch was beaten 1-3 and Nathan Hann and Frank O’Flynn lost 0-3 in their matches. Conal Jackson had his fixture cancelled as his opponent rolled an ankle. The upside was that Jackson progressed to the next round with a walkover.
There was just one GU19 player in action on Tuesday, Zoe Yeomans losing her Special Plate match 0-3.
RESULTS AND FIXTURES (all Irish start times – add two hours for local Cairo time)
BU19
Christian Dromgoole
Round of 64: Lost 0-3 (6-11, 7-11, 3-11) to Yusha Nafees [17/32] of India
Round 2 Special Plate: Plays Chanyoung Kim of Korea at 1pm on Wednesday
Nathan Hann
Plate round of 64: Lost 0-3 (0-11, 3-11, 1-11) to Darcy Hayes of Australia
Consolation Plate round 1: Plays Fergus Hill of New Zealand (TBC)
Conal Jackson
Plate round of 64: Match cancelled versus Juan-Corne Brand of South Africa
Plate round of 32: Plays Mika Von Aesch of Switzerland at 11:40am on Wednesday
Aaron Knox
Round of 64: Lost 0-3 (1-11, 9-11, 6-11) to Arihant KS [17/32] of India
Special Plate round 2: Plays Samuel Winkler of Austria at 12:20pm on Wednesday
Danny Lynch
Plate round of 64: Lost 1-3 (12-10, 5-11, 9-11, 4-11) to Judah Phillips of South Africa
Consolation Plate round 1: Plays Abdulrahman Alkandari of Kuwait (Time TBC)
Frank O’Flynn
Special Plate round 2: Lost 0-3 (6-11, 4-11, 6-11) to Maximus Mathews of New Zealand
Consolation Plate round 1: Plays Keng In Leong of Macau (Time TBC)
GU19
Riley Slade
Plate round of 32: Salma Hassan of Canada at 9am on Wednesday
Ella Walsh
Plate round of 32: Plays Maria Spirina [AIN] at 9:40am on Wednesday
Zoe Yeomans
Special Plate round of 32: Lost 0-3 (4-11, 2-11, 3-11) to Tsz Ling Alyssa Ho [17/32] of Canada
