Indian Tour squash tournament: It's a Velavan-Abhishek men's final; Sunayna & Tanvi to clash for women's title
Velavan Senthilkumar stormed into the final of the HCL-SRFI Indian Tour Domestic Challenger squash tournament, a PSA Challenger Tour 10 event, after he got the better of fourth seed Abhishek Agarwal 3-0 in the semifinal. The competition is being staged at the Indian Squash Academy in Chennai.
Velavan Senthilkumar will meet Abhishek Pradhan, who is seeded sixth, in the final on Thursday. Pradhan beat Rahul Baitha 3-0 in the other semifinal.
The top two seeds -- Sunayna Kuruvilla and Tanvi Khanna -- will vie for the women's title. Both Sunanya and Tanvi outplayed their opponents Akshaya Sri and Aparajitha Balamurukan, respectively, in straight games in the last four.
Tanvi was at her best as she quietly went about dismantling her opponent Aparajitha Balamurukan. Aparajitha did stage a brief comeback in the second game but her opponent was on the money to thwart all resistance.
Read: Squash: Sunayna Kuruvilla leaving no stone unturned to roar back into form
Giant killer Akshaya Sri, who had an excellent outing in the tournament, finally ran out of steam against Sunayna Kuruvilla, but not before she pushed the top seed to the wall. In the end, however, Sunayna had enough fuel in the tank to get past Akshaya.
Indian squash star Joshna Chinappa back in top 10
Joshna Chinappa is back in the top 10 of the PSA women's squash rankings. This is the first time that Chinappa has made it to the top 10 since 2016.
The women's rankings are dominated by Egypt with five of their players in the top 10, including world number one Nour El Sherbini. Sunayna (77) and Tanvi (98) are the only other Indians in the top 100.
India's highest-ranked men's player, Saurav Ghosal, dropped to 15 following a pre-quarterfinal finish in Chicago last month.
Results of Indian Tour Domestic Challenger
Women:
Sunayna Kuruvilla bt Akshaya Sri 11-5, 11-9, 11-1; Tanvi Khanna bt Aparajitha Balamurukan 11-4, 11-5, 11-6
Men:
Velavan Senthilkumar bt Abhishek Agarwal 11-8, 14-12, 11-5; Abhishek Pradhan bt Rahul Baitha 11-7, 11-3, 11-9
Finals (August 26):
Sunayna Kuruvilla vs Tanvi Khanna; Velavan Senthilkumar vs Abhishek Pradhan