Juan Camilo Vargas (COL) 3-2 Leandro Romiglio (ARG) 7-11, 12-10, 8-11, 11-1, 13-11 (72m)
An breathtaking STUNNING South American Derby, with two training partners playing a sublime attacking fair intense match. Go and watch the replay NOW.
In an epic Pan American derby, Colombia’s Juan Camilo Vargas fought back to get the better of Argentina’s Leandro Romiglio. Romiglio went in as the slight favourite, ranked eight places above his opponent at World No.32, and made a strong start, taking the opening game 11-7.
Vargas came back impressively though to level with a hard-fought 12-10 win, before falling behind again as 2022 Pan American Champion Romiglio took game three 11-8.
Once again, Vargas hit back and this time did not let the momentum slip, dominating game four 11-1 and then eking out a nerve-shredding fifth game 13-11.
Juan Camilo :
I’m just super happy.
Lean and I are training partners, I only moved recently to Amsterdam, but I was in Prague, and we trained together for about 4 years. We are good friends, we travelled and played Pan Ams together, so it’s difficult to play one of your closest friends. But because of that, it was good squash, there wasn’t any interference…
It could have gone either way, we always have good battles, a bit of a similar game. But our H2H in PSA is more in his favour, so I’m happy I pulled the win today.
Maybe I was a bit hungrier at certain moments of the match, and more focused. But at the same time, I lost focus for example at the end, and he could have closed it. I wanted that win quite badly, I left with a bitter ending last year in the worlds, I lost going to the 3rd round. But now, I know the level I can play at, and I hope I can show that again this season.
