Knight Celebrates The GoodLife In Ottawa by Howard Harding 11 November 2013
- After finishing as runner-up last year, New Zealander Martin Knight
went one better this year by winning the GoodLife Open in the Canadian
capital Ottawa, where he beat Pakistan's Danish Atlas Khan in the final
of the PSA World Tour Challenger 10 squash event in its ninth year at
GoodLife Fitness.
Knight, the top seed
from Auckland, reached the final without dropping a game all week -
whilst second seed Khan, a 19-year-old from Peshawar, was taken to four
games in all his battles en-route to the climax.
"The first game saw
the players trading points, Danish keeping it close with a very focused
Martin," explained tournament promoter Heather Wallace. "Danish however
was not able to sustain his good play, Martin finishing strong, taking
the first game 11-8.
"The second game again
was close, with Danish winning most of his points from the backhand
side, however his backhand was also his undoing as he made many errors
to the front left of the court. Towards the end of the second game,
Danish lost some composure when he tied the game 9-9, then thought he
won the next rally to get to game ball, but was denied when a let was
played over one of his pickups.
"Knight was as focused
as ever at this crucial point in the second game: He kept the pressure
on, Danish again hit two backhand short errors to give the game to
Martin 13-11.
"The loss of the
second game definitely had an effect on Danish and at 6-0 down in the
third he retired with a shin problem which resulted from an awkward
front court pick up earlier on in the match."
The win marks the fifth PSA World Tour title of Knight's career - and the 29-year-old's second in the past three months.
