USA Men Mark First Ever World Junior Team Final

The USA men's team reached the final of the World Junior Team Championships for the first time as the No.2 seeds defeated fifth seeds India in a dominant display to set up a showdown with defending champions and hosts Egypt at Black Ball Sporting Club in Cairo.

There was more history made in the women's event, too, as Hong Kong fought back from a match down to reach the final for the first time since 2009 after overcoming USA. They too will go up against Egypt, who are targeting a record tenth consecutive women's World Championship title after dispatching England in the first of two Egypt/England clashes.

At last year's championships in Houston, the US men's team were left to rue a semi-final defeat to Republic of Korea that robbed them of the chance to appear in both finals at home.

In Cairo, however, they exorcised those demons with a crushing display over a dangerous Indian side who had knocked out Republic of Korea in the previous round.

US first string Alexander Dartnell, who lost his match in last year's semi-final, completely dominated today against Sandhesh Palanivel Ravikumar, rolling his opponent 11-3, 11-2, 11-5 to settle any nerves.

Any hopes for India, playing in the semi-finals for the first time since 2012, were then quickly extinguished in the second match, with 16-year-old Jack Elriani wrapping up an 11-6, 11-4, 11-7 win over Arihant Kalamangalam Sunil to complete the victory.

Afterwards, US Squash's Director of Junior National Teams Karim Ibrahim said: "This means the world to us. It's been about ten years in the making, with generations of juniors coming through the pipeline.

"When we equalled our highest finish last year with third in Houston, that was bittersweet for us and we came here wanting to go all the way and challenge in the final. And these players deserve it they've worked extremely hard for it."

USA will take on seven-time champions and top seeds Egypt in the final, with individual champion Mohamad Zakaria starting off with a 3/0 win over England's Alexander Broadbridge, followed by a win by the same scoreline for Eiad Daoud over Ismail Khalil.

Egypt will be in the women's final, too, with the hosts looking to underline an unprecedented era of dominance as they hope to become the first team to win a tenth consecutive world championship title, in a run stretching back 18 years to the 2007 championships in Hong Kong.

The top seeds, represented today by the record four-time champion of the individual competition Amina Orfi and Jana Swaify, made short work of No.4 seeds and five-time champions England, with Orfi brushing aside Mariam Eissa 11-0, 11-3, 11-3 and Swaify dispatching a spirited Olivia Owens 11-2, 11-9, 11-4.

Tasked with taking on the champions on their own court are No.2 seeds Hong Kong, who will be in the final for the first time for 16 years after a 2/1 win over USA.

Tsz Ching Cheung, who reached the quarter-final of the individual event last week, was up first for the No.2 seeds against USA's Alexandra Jaffe. Despite each game being a closely-contested encounter, Jaffe played the bigger points better to give USA the lead with a 12-10, 11-9, 11-6 win.

Helen Tang found the perfect response for her side, though, dominating Charlotte Pastel 11-6, 11-2, 11-2 to make the last match between Ena Kwong and Samantha Jaffe a winner-takes-all decider.

To the delight of the Hong Kong bench and supporters, Kwong who was able to get her side over the line, with the 17-year-old composed on court and in her celebrations as she edged the first game via tie-break en-route to a 12-10, 11-5, 6-11, 11-5 win.

After the tie, Hong Kong coach Dick Leung said: "It was a little up and down but the girls are doing very well; it's about how they handle the pressure in those crunch points. We've always been in that top half of the world status, but I think this experience is important for squash in Hong Kong because we have a lot of young juniors coming up and they can see that we can do it and make it to the final of a world championships. And they'll now have that goal in the future and we'll do our best to have a world champion!"