Skip to main content

Nicol gunning for her 51st title in Cleveland

KUALA LUMPUR: World No. 1 Nicol David will kick start the year by competing in the US$55,000 Cleveland Racquet Classic in Ohio on Sunday.

The five-time world champion, who won all nine Women’s International Squash Players Association (Wispa) titles last year, will be gunning for the 51st title of her career since turning pro in 2000.
The 27-year-old Penangite trained for three weeks under former world champion Sarah Fitz-Gerald in Melbourne to prepare for the challenges this year.

Nicol, who bagged the Wispa Player of the Year award for a fifth consecutive time last week, will take on a qualifier in the first round.

She will have two Australians in her half of the draw – world No. 7 Kasey Brown and world No. 3 Rachael Grinham.

The Penangite, who also won all 10 titles in 2008, is expected to meet world No. 2 Jenny Duncalf of England in the final.

Nicol last tasted defeat when she was beaten by Duncalf in the semi-finals of the Qatar Classic in November 2009.

But Nicol has been on the roll since, winning all major tournaments like the World Open, British Open, World Games, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games and Asian championships.



Star


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ex-coach's jail sentence cut to a year

PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal yesterday sentenced former athletics coach C. Ramanathan to 12 months' jail for molesting two junior athletes 19 years ago. A three-man bench led by Datuk Mohd Hishamudin Mohd Yunus unanimously dismissed Ramanathan's appeal against conviction, but varied the jail sentence of four years to a year, which was to run concurrently. Following yesterday's ruling, Ramanathan, 75, a former teacher, walked out a free man as he had served 10 months in Kajang Prison. Convicts get one-third remission for good behaviour while in prison. However, he will lose his pension. Hishamudin, who sat with Datuk Abdul Wahab Patail and Datuk Linton Albert, said the court found no merit to overturn the conviction. "However, in reducing the sentence, we considered Ramanathan's age and the long years the appeal has taken." Deputy public prosecutor Awang Armadajaya Awang Mahmud submitted that then High Court judge Tan Sri Abdull Hamid E...
2 comments
Read more

Badminton: Fans rooting for all-Malaysian semis

Reports: RAJES PAUL KUALA LUMPUR: The home fans will be rooting for an all-Malaysian men’s singles semi-final between Lee Chong Wei and Liew Daren. But Chong Wei is more fancied to advance than Daren in quarter-final matches against Indonesian Simon Santoso and Dane Peter Gade-Christensen respectively at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil today. Yesterday, Chong Wei defeated Vietnamese Nguyen Tien Minh 21-9, 18-21, 21-7 in a second-round match that saw the world number one struggling to adapt to the draught in the stadium in the second game. And Daren continued a fairy tale run in his home Open, blowing away a toothless Hsueh Hsuan-yi of Taiwan 21-14, 21-12. Although Choong Wei had to slog for the win over Tien Minh, the top seed and defending champion felt that he was playing better by the day. “I got off to a good start but found it hard to cope with the draught. I tried to catch up after losing my momentum but that did not happen and I decided to conserve energy for ...
11 comments
Read more

Rajagobal Let Off The Hook

PETALING JAYA, April 24 (Bernama) -- National head coach Datuk K. Rajagobal was let off the hook by the Football Association of Malaysia's (FAM) Disciplinary Committee after finding no evidence that he had violated FAM's Article 88, as claimed. FAM Disciplinary Committee chairman Datuk Taufik Abdul Razak said the committee had decided not to charge Rajagobal after carefully analysing the video of the post-match press conference by the 56-year-old coach. "After listening to the recording of the post-match press conference, we decided to drop the charge against Rajagopal as he did not make such a statement. "Maybe his (Rajagobal) assessment and comments of the match was misconstrued by the media. There was no mention of the FAM policy throughout his comments," said Taufik after emerging from a three-hour Disciplinary Committee meeting at Wisma FAM in Kelana Jaya, here, Wednesday. Rajagobal who does not mince his words when asked to com...
4 comments
Read more