By JANE BALL (Squash Mad Reporter)

WSF Men’s World Junior Team Championship hosts France put in a solid performance as they overcame Ukraine to top Pool E and reach the second round.

No.5 seeds France went into the match already in a strong position after opening day wins over Spain and the USA and today looked even more confident, with Antonin Romieu getting his side off to a perfect start with a comfortable 3-0 win against Maksym Tokar.

Melvil Scianimanico and Brice Nicolas then continued the relentless attacking performance, with Scianimanico beating Volodymyr Anisimov 11-0, 11-4, 11-0 and Nicolas bringing the match to a close with an 11-4, 11-3, 11-3 win over Timofey Radionov, who was promoted to No.1 with Dima Scherbakov ruled out.

France will play Colombia in the next round after they beat New Zealand 3-0.

After the match, Romieu said: “It feels good to top the group. That was our target and we were really focused on that. Now we’re looking forward to the next one. We’re here representing France in France and that’s really pushing us.

“Everyone on the team has been really good friends for a long time and we are focused. We know we can achieve something great this week.”

With top seeds and defending champions Egypt already through after winning both matches in a three-team group yesterday, the rest of the top seeds all followed suit in topping their pools.

In the morning session, No.6 seeds India made it three wins out of three with a 3-0 win over South Africa, before No.4 seeds Malaysia did the same in the afternoon with a 3-0 victory over Germany.

After playing just one fixture each on the opening day yesterday, No.2 seeds England and No.3 seeds Pakistan safely navigated their way past Korea and traditional rivals Australia, and the Netherlands and Hong Kong, China, respectively.

India’s Arnaav Sareen, who will take on Australia in today’s round two match, said afterwards: “It feels very good, but the job isn’t done for us. We want to play our next match well and hopefully after that as well. We haven’t set a target for a position, just to play the best squash that we can and improve in each match. I think we’ve played well so far, but so have the other boys, and we’re looking forward to it.”

England’s Franklyn Smith said: “We don’t view the Australia team as rivals, we view them as friends. It means a lot to top the group, it gives us a lot of momentum going forward into the knockout stages tomorrow, as well as a bye for the first match, so we can get a nice rest in the morning and then prepare for the afternoon.”

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After topping their groups, top four seeds Egypt, England, Pakistan and Malaysia will receive a bye through to the quarter-finals, which will be played from 16:00 (GMT+2) today (19 August), following the conclusion of the second round, which will begin at 10:00.

The runners up in the six groups also progressed through to the knockout stages, where they will join India and France in round two.

In one of the matches of the day, Ireland’s Denis Gilevskiy built on a solid last-16 finish in the individual championship by proving the difference in a 2-1 win over Scotland, with the 18-year-old coming in with the tie at 1-1 to deliver an 11-4, 11-8, 11-5 win over Kyle Penman to set up a round two match against the Netherlands, who beat Guyana 3-0.

Alex Fuller, Ireland’s coach, said: “The Irish team are excited to be through to the last 16 and hoping for a big performance as we take on the best teams in the world!”

Tomorrow also sees the exciting prospect of a North American derby between Canada and the USA in the first match on the glass court, after they beat Switzerland 3-0 and Spain 2-1 respectively to progress.

The knockout stages of the 2022 WSF Men’s World Junior Team Championships begin today (19 August). The action starts from 10:00 (GMT+2) and will be streamed live and free on the WSF YouTube channel and other streaming partners.

2022 WSF Men’s World Junior Team Championship, Nancy, France.

Qualifying rounds:

Pool A

[10/12] COLOMBIA 3-0 [13/15] NEW ZEALAND
Juan Irisarri bt Apa Fatialofa 3-0: 11-6, 11-8, 11-4
Jose Santamaria bt Mason Smales 3-0: 11-9, 11-4, 11-1
Juan Jose Torres Lara bt Joe Smythe 3-2: 7-11, 9-11, 12-10, 11-5, 11-6
Final positions: 1 Egypt, 2 Colombia, 3 New-Zealand

Pool B

[2] ENGLAND 3-0 [10/12] REPUBLIC OF KOREA
Franklyn Smith bt Tae Kyung Jung 3-0: 11-0, 11-0, 11-0
Jonah Bryant bt Seojin Oh 3-0: 12-10, 11-5, 11-3
Sam Osborne-Wylde bt Joo Young Na 3-1: 11-8, 4-11, 11-4, 11-8

[13/15] AUSTRALIA 3-0 [22/23] KUWAIT
Dylan Classen bt Ali Alnejadah 3-1: 4-11, 11-9, 11-9, 11-7
Gregory Chan bt Saad Mohamed Al Suwaid 3-0: 11-7, 11-3, 11-5
Oscar Curtis bt Abdul Rahman Mohamad Al Maghrabi 3-0: 11-2, 11-7, 11-4

[2] ENGLAND 3-0 [13/15] AUSTRALIA
Franklyn Smith bt Dylan Classen 3-0: 12-10, 11-6, 11-9
Jonah Bryant bt Luke Eyles 3-0: 11-5, 16-14, 11-6
Finnlay Withington bt Oscar Curtis 3-0: 11-9, 11-6, 11-9

[10/12] REPUBLIC OF KOREA 2-1 [22/23] KUWAIT
Tae Kyung Jung lost to Ali Alnejadah W/O
Seojin Oh bt Saad Mohamed Al Suwaid 3-0: 11-7, 14-12, 11-1
Joo Young Na bt Abdul Rahman Mohamad Al Maghrabi 3-0: 11-6, 11-4, 11-3

Final positions: 1 England, 2 Australia, 3 Korea, 4 Kuwait

Pool C

[13/15] HONG KONG, CHINA 2-1 [22/23] GUYANA
Tsz Shing Tam bt Michael Alphonso 3-2: 3-11, 11-4, 4-11, 12-10, 11-7
Jat Tse bt Nicholas Verwey 3-0: 11-6, 11-4, 11-4
Arthur Pak Ki Law lost to Shomari Wiltshire 0-3: 10-12, 5-11, 6-11

[3] PAKISTAN 3-0 [10/12] NETHERLANDS
Muhammad Ashab Irfan bt Hjalmer Mols 3-0: 11-3, 11-5, 11-5
Noor Zaman bt Knut Hogervorst 3-1: 11-7, 11-8, 5-11, 11-8
Mohammad Hamza Khan bt Samuel Gerrits 3-0: 11-9, 11-5, 11-6

[10/12] NETHERLANDS 3-0 [22/23] GUYANA
Hjalmer Mols bt Nicholas Verwey 3-1: 4-11, 11-9, 17-15, 11-6
Knut Hogervorst bt Samuel Ince-Carvalhal 3-0: 11-9, 11-9, 12-10
Rowan Damming bt Shomari Wiltshire 3-0: 11-9, 11-9, 11-4

[3] PAKISTAN 3-0 [13/15] HONG KONG, CHINA
Muhammad Ashab Irfan bt Tsz Shing Tam 3-0: 11-7, 14-12, 11-1
Noor Zaman bt Akifumi Murakami 3-0: 11-5, 11-6, 11-7
Mohammad Hamza Khan bt Jat Tse 3-1: 4-11, 11-6, 11-9, 11-4

Final positions: 1 Pakistan, 2 Netherlands, 3 Hong Kong, China, 4 Guyana

Pool D

[7/9] CANADA 3-0 [19/21] SWITZERLAND
Mohamed Kamal bt Lasse Widmer 3-0: 11-2, 11-4, 11-3
Jacob Lin bt Nero Harms 3-0: 11-4, 11-4, 11-2
Syan Singh bt David Bernet 3-1: 11-6, 11-5, 10-12, 13-11

[4] MALAYSIA 3-0 [16/18] GERMANY
Harith Danial Jefri bt Fabian Igelbrink 3-0: 11-6, 11-2, 11-4
Andrik Lim Shan bt Dennis Welte 3-0: 11-3, 11-6, 11-3
Ameeshenraj Chandaran bt Youssef Elgammal 3-0: 11-1, 11-0, 11-3

Final positions: 1 Malaysia, 2 Canada, 3 Germany, 4 Switzerland

Pool E

[5] FRANCE 3-0 [16/18] UKRAINE
Antonin Romieu bt Maksym Tokar 3-0: 11-3,11-0,11-4
Melvil Scianimanico bt Volodymyr Anisimov 3-0: 11-0,11-4,11-0
Brice Nicolas bt Timofey Radionov 3-0: 11-4,11-3,11-3

[7/9] USA 2-1 [19/21] SPAIN
Zane Patel bt Christian Canelon 3-0: 11-5,11-6,11-4
Rehan Luthra bt Mario Pedrosa 3-0: 11-7, 11-4, 11-3
Tad Carney lost to Hugo Lafuente Jaen 1-3: 11-8, 8-11, 7-11, 4-11

Final positions: 1 France, 2 USA, 3 Spain, 4 Ukraine

Pool F

[6] INDIA 3-0 [16/18] SOUTH AFRICA
Paarth Ambani bt Luke James Jacoby 3-0: 11-4, 11-4, 11-4
Krishna Mishra bt Seth Flisberg 3-1: 11-6, 11-5, 3-11, 11-3
Arnaav Sareen bt Brett Mclachlan 3-0: 11-6, 11-3, 11-8

[7/9] IRELAND 2-1 [19/21] SCOTLAND
Jack O Flynn bt Oliver Hunter 3-0: 11-3, 11-3, 11-7
Sean Murphy lost to Rory Richmond 2-3: 14-12, 3-11, 11-9, 5-11, 4-11
Denis Gilevskiy bt Kyle Penman 3-0: 11-4, 11-8, 11-5

Final positions: 1 India, 2 Ireland, 3 South Africa, 4 Scotland

Schedule: 2022 WSF Men’s World Junior Team Championship, day three (round two and quarter-finals)

10:00 [7/9] CANADA v [7/9] USA
10:00 [6] INDIA v [13/15] AUSTRALIA
10:00 [10/12] COLOMBIA v [5] FRANCE
10:00 [7/9] IRELAND v [10/12] NETHERLANDS

16:00 [1] EGYPT v CANADA/USA
16:00 [3] PAKISTAN v INDIA/AUSTRALIA
18:00 [2] ENGLAND v IRELAND/NETHERLANDS
18:00 [4] MALAYSIA v FRANCE/COLOMBIA

Pictures courtesy of World Squash