JOIN USSaurav Ghosal blanked Jonathan Kemp in his men’s first round match while Joshna Chinappa rallied past Deon Saffery to make the women’s draw at the Allam British Open squash championships here on Monday.
World No 19 Ghosal played a solid match to get past the English qualifier at the KC Stadium.
Ghosal had to fight hard in the first game before completing an 11-9, 11-6, 11-6 win, sending the Indian into the round of 16 where he plays either fourth seed Gregory Gaultier or Alister Walker.
“I am just glad to get through in three games against someone as talented as Kemp,” Ghosal was quoted as saying by the tournament website. “He doesn’t give you any rhythm to play with, so I just had to keep it as tight as I could and he wasn’t able to do what he sometimes can - last time we played it was 11/9 in the fifth.
“This is the British Open after all, so to be able to put in a good performance here is very encouraging for the next rounds,” he said of the world’s oldest tournament which makes a return to Yorkshire after almost 40 years.
In the women’s category, 26th-ranked Joshana overcame a stiff challenge from No 48 Deon Saffery from Wales, advancing to the main draw with a 11-13, 11-9, 11-9, 11-5 victory.
Joshna was pleased with her performance. “I hope that my game has improved, I’ve been training very hard with Ritwick (Bhattacharya) for about a year and a half now, since I came back from a knee injury. And we started from scratch really, from fitness to spending more time on court,” she said.
About her opponent, Joshna said: “Deon has really improved tremendously since the last time I trained with her, she had some pretty good results, and I knew that today would be tough. And it was. We had some pretty long rallies, and she stuck well in there.”
Dipika Pallikal, India’s highest ranked player at 15, plays her first round match against 22nd-ranked Line Hansen of Denmark on Tuesday.