Malaysia\u2019s Sivasangari Subramaniam produced a herculean effort by recovering from 2-1 down against Satomi Watanabe to win 15-13, 5-11, 5-11, 11-7, 11-8 and lift the Grasshopper Cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sivasangari, who was runner-up last year to Nouran Gohar, had to overturn a deficit just like she did in the semi finals yesterday against top seed Amina Orfi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s the 17th title on the PSA Squash Tour of the Sivasangari\u2019s career, and she will climb up to World No.5 in the PSA World Rankings on Monday \u2013 the first Asian player in eight and a half years to break into the top five since the legendary Nicol David.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sivasangari boasted six wins over Watanabe on Tour coming into today\u2019s meeting, but it was the Japanese No.1 who prevailed last time at the PSA Squash Tour Finals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Watanabe looked on course to taking the first, but four game balls of hers were saved by Sivasangari, with the World No.6 being more clinical in the tiebreak to claim the first 15-13 after 18 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Watanabe got the perfect respond to not converting the first, dominating the middle of the court and driving the ball into the corners to equalise, and she carried those tactics through to the third as well as taking the ball in short to nudge 2-1 up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sivasangari, who requested a new ball at the end of the third game, surged back in the fourth, producing some quickfire winners as the momentum shifted back in her favour as well as squeezing errors from Watanabe\u2019s racket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a fifth which went point for point, it was Sivsangari who held her nerve at the business end to complete the comeback in style and win her second title of the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYesterday I had a long match and a big win. Satomi and I have been playing since I was nine years old, we grew up together, we\u2019re good friends off court and it\u2019s always tough playing each other,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe grew up playing every category together and now in the senior events. I\u2019m happy with how we\u2019ve grown up together on the Tour and for me I\u2019m just relieved and happy. I\u2019m very tired but I\u2019m happy to be winning this title.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Result: <\/strong>[3] Sivasangari Subramaniam (MAS) bt. [2] Satomi Watanabe (JPN) 3-2: 15-13, 5-11, 5-11, 11-7, 11-8 (62m)<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Malaysia\u2019s Sivasangari Subramaniam produced a herculean effort by recovering from 2-1 down against Satomi Watanabe to win 15-13,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[37],"class_list":["post-12245","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-squash"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sivasangari-Subramaniam-MAS-v-Nele-Gilis-BEL_RGPM51152-scaled-1.jpg",2560,1707,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sivasangari-Subramaniam-MAS-v-Nele-Gilis-BEL_RGPM51152-scaled-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sivasangari-Subramaniam-MAS-v-Nele-Gilis-BEL_RGPM51152-scaled-1-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sivasangari-Subramaniam-MAS-v-Nele-Gilis-BEL_RGPM51152-scaled-1-768x512.jpg",640,427,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sivasangari-Subramaniam-MAS-v-Nele-Gilis-BEL_RGPM51152-scaled-1-1024x683.jpg",640,427,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sivasangari-Subramaniam-MAS-v-Nele-Gilis-BEL_RGPM51152-scaled-1-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sivasangari-Subramaniam-MAS-v-Nele-Gilis-BEL_RGPM51152-scaled-1-2048x1366.jpg",2048,1366,true],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sivasangari-Subramaniam-MAS-v-Nele-Gilis-BEL_RGPM51152-scaled-1-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sivasangari-Subramaniam-MAS-v-Nele-Gilis-BEL_RGPM51152-scaled-1-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Sivasangari-Subramaniam-MAS-v-Nele-Gilis-BEL_RGPM51152-scaled-1.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12245","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12246,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12245\/revisions\/12246"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}