Squash: Devoy closing on title

CASSIE JACKMAN, England's World Junior Champion, who has been billed as a future world No 1, was beaten in four games in the semi-finals of the Silver Unicorn World Open by Susan Devoy, the top-seeded title-holder, here yesterday. The 19-year-old was named by the great New Zealander as her likely successor after their British Open semi-final six months ago, but Devoy destroyed Jackman's immediate hopes of the title in less than 45 minutes.

The score was 9-0, 4-9, 9-0, 9-0, and the match was as curious as the scoreline. Devoy won the first 10 rallies to take the opening game in only four minutes, out-playing the teenager in the third in 11 minutes and in the fourth game in eight minutes as she moved closer to her fourth world title.

In between, Jackman suddenly found a spell of stroke-making brilliance from 3-4 down in the second game to take that with six points in a row. Most of the time, though, she was unable to vary the pace or deny Devoy the room to launch fierce attacks.

England's hopes of the World Open title ended when the second-seeded former world champion, Martine LeMoignan, was beaten even more quickly. The Guernsey player lasted 25 minutes in a 9-2, 9-1, 9-4 loss to Michelle Martin.

Martin, whose elder brother Rodney won the Men's World Open 14 months ago, said: 'That was an inspiration to me. They said the two Khans couldn't be beaten but Rod did it, and I believe victory is possible tomorrow.'