CHENNAI: TOP seeds Saurav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa breezed past Sandeep Jangra and Radhika Rathore into the quarterfinals of the 77th senior national squash championship on Wednesday. Ghosal won 11-4, 11-3, 11-8, while Joshna prevailed 11-5, 11-3, 11-4.
“Sandeep and I go back a long way. I think he is year younger. We played in junior teams together. It’s a bit of a shame because he has got really good racket skill. It was a decent match,” said Ghosal.
Among the men, second seed Abhishek Pradhan had a tough time against youngster Rahul Baitha. In the first two games, Baitha played some impressive shots. However, the Maharashtra man’s experience prevailed in the end. In the women’s section, Tamil Nadu’s Pooja Arthi made sure that the seeded Sanika Choudhari did not have it easy, stretching the latter to five games.
SELECT RESULTS Men: Saurav Ghosal (1) bt Sandeep Jangra 11-4, 11-3, 11-8; Abhay Singh bt Suraj Chand 11-3, 11-5, 11-2; Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu bt Ravi Dixit 11-9, 11-1, 11-9; Yash Fadte bt Vijay Kumar 11-8, 11-2, 11-7; Abhishek Pradhan (2) bt Rahul Baitha 11-9, 11-9, 11-6. Women: Joshna Chinappa (1) bt Radhika Rathore 11-5, 11-3, 11-4; Urwashi Joshi bt S Akshaya Sri 11-3, 11-4, 11-6; Tanvi Khanna bt Riya Sisodia 11-9, 11-8, 11-8; Aparajitha Balamurukan bt Shameena Riaz 11-7, 11-6, 11-2; Sanika Choudhari bt Pooja Arthi R 9-11, 11-9, 11-6, 7-11, 11-5; Sunayna Kuruvilla (2) bt Rathika Suthanthira Seelan 11-2, 11-9, 11-3.