Dubai
The UAE’s top junior squash player, 17-year-old Sandeep Ramachandran has been making waves on the domestic squash scene, despite only returning to the UAE two months back. In June, Sandeep won the Fertil Abu Dhabi Open under-19 title thereby cementing his position as the top junior player in the UAE and has had a very busy schedule participating in back-to-back events since then.
Sandeep's moment came in the recently concluded NAS 2014 Ramadan Sports Tournament at the Nad Al Sheba. He caused a string of upsets where as an unseeded player he beat the 3rd seed of the event, Asif Khan (3-1) in the second round and 6th seed Jamal Al Barwani (3-0) in the quarter-final. He was eventually halted by the 2nd seed Mubarak Mohsin but not before taking him to five grueling sets in the semi-final. Sandeep finished 3rd in the event after easily dispatching 4th seed Faheem Khan in straight sets in under 20 minutes in the play-off.
Trained by Maqbool Khawaja, who also coaches UAE No. 1 Adil Maqbool, Sandeep made another breakthrough at the recently concluded 2014 Ramadan Squash Tournament held at the Abu Dhabi Country Club where he avenged his earlier defeat to 2nd seed and World No. 233, Mohsin three games to one (11-9, 11-6, 12-14, 11-5) in the semi-final and thus advanced to his first senior event final in the UAE. In the final he lost out to Aamir Khan, but not before pushing Abu Dhabi’s top player to four sets.
“I am very happy with the progress Sandeep has made over the last two months. He has worked extremely hard in trying to improve certain areas of his game and his progressive results over the last few weeks speak volumes of it. He had been one of India’s top ranked players in the under-15 and under-17 age groups and our next aim is for him to perform well in the upcoming Indian Junior Open next month.” Khawaja said.
Sandeep's past achievements include winning the Scottish Junior Open (U-11), 1st NSCI Open Squash title (U-15) in Mumbai, CCI tournament title (U-15) in Mumbai and the DDA Championships (U-17) in Delhi. He has also been runner-up at the Indian National Junior Squash Championships (U-15, U-17) and the Scottish Junior Open (U-13, U-15).
Sandeep recently represented India in the Asian Junior Squash Championship held in Kish, Iran. “I had viral fever just before the Asian Championships and could not perform to my expectations. I have been training very hard and am hoping to do well in the upcoming championships.” he said.
