Top seed Pradhan sails into quarters

Top seed Abhishek Pradhan of Maharashtra recorded back to back wins to advance into the men's quarter-finals of the 4th NSCI All India Open Squash Tournament on Sunday.

The pony-tailed Pradhan, ranked fifth in the country, proved too good for Rajasthan's Chetan Singh Rathore and easily coasted to a 11-4, 11-3, 11-4 win in just 15 minutes in a second round match.

Later in the third round he faced quite a challenge from Ajit Sharma of Services and had to bring out his best to clinch a 11-9, 11-7, 11-7 win in about 30 minutes.

Sharma had earlier recovered from a 1-2 deficit to narrowly win the last two games against Maharashtras Shashi Pandey for a 11-9, 5-11, 3-11, 11-8, 11-9 victory.

Results: Men's (second round): Abhishek Pradhan beat Chetan Singh Rathore 11-4 11-3 11-4; Ajit Sharma beat Shashi Pandey 11-9 5-11 3-11 11-8 11-9; Abhinav Sinha beat Yashraj Bhargava 11-3 11-2 11-2; Sandeep Jangra beat Rahil Fazelbhoy 11-8 11-6 11-4; Puneet Pareek beat Vaibhav Chauhan 11-8 12-10 11-3; Kunal Singh beat Shardul Gawde 11-0 11-0 11-0; Naveen Jangra beat Farman Khan 11-8 11-5 11-6; Rounak Yadav beat Abhinav Thyagarajan 11-6 11-6 11-9; Mehul Kumar beat Akhil Daswani 11-6 11-4 8-11 11-3; Ashish Keskar beat Ritik Shah 11 -1 11-3 11-2; Aishwary Singh beat Sonu Kumar 11-1 11-2 11-5; Akhilesh Kumar Yadav beat Simoria Mayur Jaiswal 11-2 11-1 11- 2; Ness Billimoria beat Vicky Gagat 11-3 11-1 8-11 11-3; Abhishek Agarwal beat Aaroh Soni 11-1 11-6 11-6; Rahul Baitha beat Animesh Chug 11-5 11-4 11-2. Third round: Abhishek Pradhan beat Ajit Sharma 11-9 11-7 11-7.