KUALA LUMPUR: Nafiizwan Adnan and Delia Arnold retained the men's and women's titles respectively at the National Squash Championships in Bukit Jalil on Sunday.
National No 1 Nafiizwan recovered from being 4-8 down in the third game to overcome second seed Ivan Yuen of Selangor 11-8, 8-11, 12-10, 11-8 to win a second consecutive national men's title.
Similarly, Kuala Lumpur's Delia also claimed a second national title in a row by beating Low Wee Wern of Penang 11-9, 11-2, 11-9 at the National Squash Centre in a repeat of the 2015 final.
Nafiizwan's triumph came on the back of an impressive run of results recently, which has seen the 30-year-old from Terengganu claim a win over World No 3 Omar Mosaad of Egypt to reach the last-16 of the World Championship.
"It means a lot to win this title a second year in a row, and to remain the country's No 1 player," said World No 31 Nafiizwan, who improved his head-to-head record against Ivan to 12-2.
"I'm really happy. I lost the second game after making many mistakes, so I just had to carry on and reduce the mistakes. I'm still learning, trying to be more offensive. I'm more creative in the front and the middle after losing at the World Championship by being too defensive," he said.
Delia took full advantage of the absence of eight-time world champion Nicol David for a third straight year to retain her title.
Ranked 15th in the world, Delia edged ahead 6-5 in her rivalry with 27th-ranked Wee Wern, who has now lost four of her six final appearances at the Nationals.
"I was expecting a really tough match because the last time I played her was here at the Nationals last year when she had just come back from injury," said Delia, 30, who took a stranglehold on the match by leading 8-0 in the second game.
"She's still not at 100 per cent, but it's good that she came back. I'm really happy to defend the title and it was a good start going into the Women's World Team Championship," she said.
Nicol, Delia, Wee Wern and national junior S. Sivasangari make up the squad for the World Team Championship in Paris from Nov 28 to Dec 3.