CHENNAI: India’s prime hope in the WISPA Challenger Anwesha Reddy got over a bout of erroneous retrievals in the second game and whittled out a comprehensive win over compatriot Shria Katri at the Indian Squash Academy on Wednesday. However, the Jangra brothers’ luck ran out as better opponents grounded the trio in the first round of the PSA Challenger.
Strangely though, Anwesha withstood a barren stretch in the second game. While she mistimed her shots once too often, she was caught too often in a regular basis. Shria led 8-4 at one juncture. But she lacked the poise to optimise the sizeable lead. Instead, she succumbed to her shell like in the first game thereafter. Anwesha insidiously clawed back to raise her lead 2-0 and the match petered out to a tame one-sided affair.
As many as five of them—first, second and third seeds Irina Assal, Carmen Lee and Pushppa Devi besides Indians Surbhi Misra, Anaka Alankamony—got a bye to the second round. Harita Omprakash threw in a surprise, as she subjugated eighth seeded Ankita Sharma in straight games while Aparajitha Balamurukan got a walkover from the injured Saumya Karki.
In the men’s draw, fourth seeded Siddharth Suchde posted a facile win over Naveen Jangra while Naveen’s brothers Sandeep and Vikas lost to Aqeel Rehman and Ahmed Hawas respectively. However, Naresh Kumar conjured a valiant effort to stretch top seed Dylan Bennett to five games. Harinder Pal Singh accounted for his senior compatriot Gaurav Nandrajog in an absorbing 54-minute duel while Hong Kong’s Anson Kwong packed off Ravi Dixit.