Asiad 2018: Dipika, Joshana, Ghosal settle for bronze in squash singles

All three Indian racqueteers in squash singles settled for bronze medals after Saurav Ghosal, Dipika Palikal Karthik and Joshana Chinappa lost their respective semi-final clashes at the 18th Asian Games here on Saturday.

Dipika lost 0-3 (7-11, 9-11, 6-11) to defending champion and former World No.1 Nicol David of Malaysia while Joshana went down 1-3 (5-11, 10-12, 11-5, 10-12) to another Malaysian Sivasangari Subramaniam.

Ghosal, meanwhile, wasted a two-set advantage to lose the men's singles semi-final 2-3 (12-10, 13-11, 6-11, 6-11, 6-11) to Chun Ming Au from Hong Kong in a cliffhanger.

Despite the reversals, this is India's best ever show in the Asian Games in squash singles.

In the 2014 Asian Games, India won two singles medals -- Ghosal had a silver and Dipika a bronze.

In the first game, Ghosal rallied remarkably to comeback from 4-9 down at one stage to take the lead.

The second game saw the Kolkata-based lad having a 4-0 lead but Chun Ming was not in a mood to throw in the towel and pushed his rival to the brink.

It was a very close contest at 8-8, 9-9 and 11-11 but Ghosal eventually had the last laugh with a winner to take a 2-0 lead in the match.

However, in the third set, from a lead of 6-5, Ghosal lost six points in a row to allow Chung Ming to make a comeback.

Dipika, on the other hand, led 5-2 and 4-1 in the first two games but three-time defending champion Nicol had enough experience to run away with a 11-7 11-9 11-6 win.

The 26-year-old had beaten Japanese Kobayashi Misaki 3-0 in the quarter-finals, while Joshana beat Hong Kong's Chan Ho Ling by a similar margin to advance to the last four stage.

At the Asiad, both losing semi-finalists bag a bronze and there is no bronze medal play-off.

David has won the Asian Games singles titles four times earlier.

--IANS

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