KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's Ng Eain Yow stayed true to form to defeat India's Velavan Senthilkumar to retain his crown at the Asian Individual Squash Championships in Hong Kong yesterday.
But there would be no double delight for Malaysia as S. Sivasangari went down in five games to Hong Kong's Chan Sin Yuk in the women's final.
World No 50 and national No 3 Sivasangari, who had played brilliantly up until the final, came up short in the end as she went down 11-6, 9-11, 14-12, 3-11, 11-1 to world No 34 Sin Yuk.
They had always enjoyed a close contest with their record this year being a win apiece.
This time, however, Sin Yuk took the crucial third game for a 2-1 lead.
Although Sivasangari fought back to take the fourth 11-3 and force a decider, she was unable to match the Hong Konger's intensity. Sin Yuk prevailed 11-1.
Nonetheless, Sivasangari can take heart from the fact that she has played excellent squash all week, and is gradually regaining her best form prior to the car accident last year that ruled her out for six months.
Eain Yow kept his side of the bargain by overpowering Velavan 11-4, 11-5, 11-6.
The world No 17 and national No 1 hardly put a foot wrong as he was just too experienced and crafty for Velavan as he sealed the win after 34 minutes.
Eain Yow's success means he is the first Malaysian since Azlan Izkandar in 2008 and 2010 to win back-to-back titles.
"Eain Yow has certainly been very impressive as he came here to do a job and he got the job done," said national coach Andrew Cross.
"His quality on the court has been really good as well as he beat everyone in three games and hardly spent more than 40 minutes in each match.
"Of course, when the Asian Games come around later this year, it will be a bit more different with a few more top players returning.
"But he's still had to beat everyone in front of him and he's done that although he will go back to Bristol and continue working hard.
"As for Sivasangari, I thought she played well this week but Sin Yuk was just better on the day.
"Still, she's had a very good week as she had some hard matches, including beating both Aifa (Azman) and Satomi (Watanabe) in the earlier rounds."
