Princeton University Athletics
Players Mentioned
Kumar Reaches Ramsay Cup Quarterfinals, Will Face Top Seed
February 29, 2008 | Women's Squash
Mauricio Sanchez, Kimlee Wong and David Letourneau are three of the eight quarterfinalists in the 2008 CSA Potter Cup draw, which will crown the national individual champion. The Princeton women, coming off the national team title, will send sophomore Neha Kumar to Saturday's quarterfinals at the Naval Academy.
On the women's side, Neha Kumar kept Princeton's hopes alive for a double-championship with a pair of 3-0 victories. She started with a 9-2, 9-3, 9-1 win over Harvard's Katherine O'Donnell and added a 9-3, 9-1, 9-7 victory over Penn's Tara Chawla in the next round. Kumar will now face top-seeded Miranda Ranieri of Yale, who also won a pair of 3-0 matches.
It wasn't a friendly first round for Princeton overall, as six players (Carly Grabowski, Emery Maine, Amanda Siebert, Casey Riley, Jackie Moss and Kaitlin Sennatt) were each eliminated early and sent into the consolation draw.
On the men's side, Sanchez and Letourneau will meet in one quarterfinal after both picked up 3-0 and 3-1 wins Friday. Sanchez, the No. 2 seed, split the first two games of his second-round match against Trinity's Supreet Singh, but Sanchez would win 18 of the final 21 points to claim the match. He will face Letourneau, who rallied from a game-one loss to upset seventh-seeded Hameed Ahmed of Rochester 6-9, 9-5, 9-6, 9-7. The winner of the Sanchez-Letourneau match will take on a member of the Trinity national championship squad, either Gustav Detter or Parth Sharma.
Wong was the lone Princeton player to sweep both matches, including a 9-5, 9-6, 9-4 win over Cornell's Christopher Sachvie. Wong, the fifth seed, will now face Harvard No. 1 and fourth-seeded Colin West in one semifinal. The winner will likely face overall No. 1 seed Baset Chaudhry of Trinity, who has yet to lose a game throughout the season.
Princeton sent five players to the second round, including sophomore David Canner, who won a 7-9, 9-3, 9-10, 9-6, 9-3 thriller over Rochester's William Newnham. Not to be outdone, teammate Hesham El Halaby also went the distance in a 3-9, 9-7, 9-3, 5-9, 9-0 victory over the higher-seeded Lee Rosen of Penn. The bad news for both was that after such exhausting matches, they were slated to face Chaudhry and Detter, respectively.
Senior Tom McKay and sophomore Santiago Imberton both lost in the first round.