Ghosal warms up with entertaining win, Harinder Pal shocked

India No.1 Saurav Ghosal warmed up with a fluent opening round win to advance to the quarter-finals in the 62nd Senior National Squash Championship at the Cricket Club of India, here today.
Ghosal, the Incheon Asian Games team gold and individual silver winner, was engaged in a 37-minute contest by qualifier Sandeep Ramachandran of Tamil Nadu before fashioning a 11-7, 11-2, 11-7 win.
Ghosal rallied from a 1-6 deficit in the opening set in the best-of-five encounter, in which the young Ramachandran impressed with a few nicks and boasts that caught his much accomplished opponent off guard.
While Ghosal raced ahead to win the second set, he did not finish it without entertaining the packed gallery with the longest rally to lead 4-2 and striking a winner between his legs from the back court, with his back to the front-wall.

The talented Ramachandran surged to a surprise 5-3 advantage in the third set. But Ghosal once again unleashed an array of strokes to snatch the lead at 7-5 before ending Ramachandran's dream encounter.
"I can't believe I played him," said a delighted Ramachandran, who also trained at the Indian Squash Academy, Chennai before being coached by Maqbool Khwaja in Dubai.

"It's a rare occasion to play Saurav Ghosal. It was a great learning experience that taught me much about his (supreme) level of fitness, his placements and control. I will have to do the same if I wish to be up there among the best."

Ghosal's win overshadowed the shock defeat of third seed Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu, who went down to junior national under-17 runner-up Robin Singh Mann of Delhi 6-11, 9-11, 7-11, while second seed Mahesh Mangaonkar halted Sandhu's younger sibling Maninder Pal with a 11-5, 12-10, 11-5 win.
Women's top seed Joshana Chinapa's kicked off her campaign without much ado and was joined in the pre-quarter-finals by second seed Sachika Ingale and third seed Urwashi Joshi.
Results: Sr. Nat: Men (1st Rd): 1-Saurav Ghosal (TN) bt Sandeep Ramachandran (TN) 11-7, 11-2, 11-7; Vijay Kumar (TN) bt Vikas Jangra (Ser) 11-6, 11-7, 11-6; Gaurav Nandrjog (Del) bt Velavan Senthilkumar (TN) 11-5, 11-5, 11-4; Ravi Dixit (TN) bt Arjun Agnihotri (Ser) 11-9, 11-4, 11-8; Robin Singh Mann (Del) bt Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu (TN) 11-6, 11-9, 11-7; Rishad Pandole (Mah) bt Deepak Mishra (TN) 12-10, 11-13, 6-11, 11-9, 11-9; Sandeep Jangra (Ser) bt Abhinav Sinha (Mah) 11-5, 11-7, 14-12; 2-Mahesh Mangaonkar (Mah) bt Maninder Pal Singh Sandhu (Pun) 11-5, 12-10, 11-5.