China Open Squash: Saurav Ghosal narrowly loses a thriller; Joshna Chinappa too exits

Saurav Ghoshal’s best wasn’t good enough

Indian squash ace Saurav Ghosal produced a remarkable effort against the sixth seed Karim Abdel Gawad in the quarter-finals of the $100,000 China Open in Shanghai on Friday, but in the end, it was still not enough for a win. The World No. 21 came back from two games down to enforce a decider before succumbing to a narrow 9-11, 3-11, 11-8, 11-5, 9-11 defeat in 76 minutes.

Later on, the women’s World No. 10 Joshna Chinappa too joined the exodus as she lost 7-11, 5-11, 6-11 to the second seed and World No. 2 Laura Massaro. The match duration was 30 minutes.

It was a great show of spirit and courage from Ghosal who is on the comeback trail after recovering from an ankle injury that had kept him out of action for over two months. In July, he played a competitive match for the first time since April when he participated at the Nationals. After winning the tournament for a record 11th time, the 30-year-old embarked on the PSA Tour.

At the China Open, which is just his second PSA event this season, the India No. 1 put up some superb resilience to topple the eighth-ranked Miguel Angel Rodriguez in five games. His quarter-final opponent Karim Abdel Gawad was always supposed to be a tough opposition as the World No. 6 has been in splendid form having reached the Hong Kong Open final last week.

But the fact that Saurav managed to take him to five games speaks volumes of the Indian’s improved conditioning and put all doubts about his fitness to rest.

He will now set his sights on the $50,000 Macau Open, beginning September 15, where he is the second seed. He starts against a qualifier there.

End of the Indian campaign in Shanghai

Ghosal and Chinappa’s losses thus bring an end to the Indian campaign at the China Open. Earlier, the Indian women’s national champion Dipika Pallikal made an exit in the first round. The World No. 19 had to play two rounds of qualifying where she secured wins over Peng Zhenni and Olivia Blatchford.

But in her first round of the main draw, she had a mountain to climb as she faced the recently-crowned Hong Kong Open champion Nouran Gohar. The two-time junior world champion did not find any difficulty in dismissing Pallikal, 11-5, 11-5, 11-6.