Squash: Injury forces Beachill out of world title hunt

Lee Beachill's chances of challenging for the world title ended yesterday when he was forced to quit with an ankle injury in the third round in Antwerp.

The eighth-seeded Yorkshireman, the British champion, claimed the referee Jack Flynn had contributed to his exit because the Ulsterman refused to allow him a full hour to recover, insisting that the injury had been self-inflicted.

Beachill's collision with Martin Heath of Scotland early in the fourth game looked innocuous, but it caused him to collapse to the floor. After diagnosis of the injury, Flynn only allowed Beachill three minutes to recover.

"I don't know if I stood on his foot or he stood on mine, but I feel hard done by that this was considered a self-inflicted injury," said Beachill. "It was an accident and I felt he contributed as much to it as I did.

"I don't know how you can say it was 100 per-cent my fault. I think for the referee to call it my fault was unfair."

Flynn countered: "These things are often marginal because it depends how you interpret the self-inflicted injury rule. But Heath was stationary when it happened and I don't think he did anything wrong."

Heath won 15-10, 6-15, 15-12, 7-1 retired, making him the fourth Briton to reach the last eight of the World Open, joining Peter Nicol, John White and Simon Parke.