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Thursday October 8, 2009

Duncalf and Waters in Nicol’s way at Hong Kong Open

By AFTAR SINGH

KUALA LUMPUR: England players Jenny Duncalf and Alison Waters will again stand in the way of Nicol David’s bid to win the Hong Kong Open title for a fourth consecutive time.

The duo gave the Penangite a torrid time in the World Championships in Amsterdam last month.

In the tournament in Hong Kong from Oct 14-18, Nicol, who has been the world No. 1 since August, 2006, will open her campaign against Line Hansen of Denmark. And she is expected to play against 13th seed Rebecca Chiu of Hong Kong in the second round.

Again the stiffer challenge for Nicol will begin in the quarter-finals where she is drawn to play against fifth seed Duncalf. The Englishwoman gave the Malaysian a good fight in the same stage at the World Open before losing 1-3.

Nicol is in the same half as fourth seed Waters, whom she beat 3-1 to reach the final of he World Open.

The other half of the draw has second seed Natalie Grinham of Holland. Nicol defeated the Australia-born Grinham 3-1 to win the World Open title a fourth time in five years.

Nicol will be gunning for a seventh title of the season on the Women’s International Squash Players Association (Wispa) circuit at the Hong Kong Open.

She failed to retain the Kuala Lumpur Open in March, losing to Natalie Grainger of the United States in the final.

She stormed back to bag the Cayman Islands Open, Texas Open, Seoul Open, Malaysian Open and the Singapore Masters but failed in the defence of the British Open title, losing to Madeline Perry of Ireland in the quarter-finals.

The other Malaysian woman for the Hong Kong Open is national No. 2 two and World No. 25 Delia Arnold, who faces an uphill task against British Open champion and third seed Rachael Grinham of Australia in the first round.

In the men’s competition, Malaysia have two players in the main draw – Mohd Azlan Iskandar and Ong Beng Hee. Azlan opens against 15th seed Cameron Pilley of Australia while Beng Hee will play against eighth seed James Willstrop of England.

The top two seeds are Karim Darwish of Egypt and Gregory Gaultier of France.

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