India’s Vikram Malhotra, seeded fourth, fought his way past the third seed and world junior champion Mostafa Asal of Egypt 11-3, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9 to win the Aspin Cup 2018, a PSA challenger tour event at Charlottetown in Canada on Saturday.
This is Malhotra’s seventh PSA title overall and second this year. The tournament has a prize money worth $11,000.
It was a closely fought match that saw the young Egyptian taking time off for a while before the second game after he suffered a mild ankle injury in a collision with the Indian. It was fast and furious stuff from both players but in the end what helped Malhotra, ranked 84th in the world, was his consistency.
Asal is an upcoming star on the circuit and dominated his way to the junior World Championship title in Chennai a couple of months earlier.
The 28-year-old Indian had a bye in the first round. He beat Jamie Ruggiero of USA in the second round, then downed eighth seed Reiko Peter (SUI) in the quarter-finals.
Malhotra’s best win, according to the seedings, came in the semi-final when he defeated second seed Alfredo Avila from Mexico 3-1 (11-5, 11-7, 10-12, 11-3) to set up the clash with Asal in the final.
Malhotra had finished semi-finalist in another PSA event just a few days earlier in Ontario.