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Unseeded England player Lewis Anderson captured bronze at the WSF World Junior Squash Championships 2019 in Kuala Lumpur at the weekend.
Appearing in his World Championship debut, the unseeded left-hander played squash of the highest order and stole the show with three successive upsets which saw the 18-year-old gatecrash the last four.
The first of those was the biggest - victory over 3/4 seed Czech Viktor Byrtus in five: 11-9, 13-15, 11-6, 4-11, 11-6 followed by a straight-games win over Egyptian Karim Elbarbary 11-7 11-7, 11-5. Anderson continued his winning run in the quarter-finals by seeing off India's 9/12 seed Veer Chotrani, the Asian Junior champion in four: 11-8, 11-9, 9-11, 11-7 to set up a semi-final showdown with defending champion Mostafa Asal. However, the top seed and world No. 29 proved too much for Anderson as Asal powered through to an 11-5, 11-5, 11-2 victory.
Anderson said:
"It's been an amazing experience for me here getting to the semi-finals. Unfortunately, Mostafa is a very good player, very strong and I just didn’t have enough in the tank after the three big wins."
Anderson's performance capped off a successful week for the England squad which saw Sam Todd and Elise Lazarus reach the last eight.
Commenting on the team's performance, England National Coach David Campion said:
"It’s been a successful individual event for England. The girls reached their seeded positions and the boys, who are a young squad with four players eligible for 2020, managed to beat a number of higher seeded players between them.
"It was fantastic to see Lewis emerge onto the big stage with a run of wins against top class juniors. Hopefully the girls can perform this week and still bring home a medal."
Follow England at the Women's World Team Junior Championships with the official site.
