India's campaign in the WSF Men's World Team Squash Championship today came to an end when they went down to top seed Egypt 0-2 in a hard-fought quarterfinal in Mulhouse, France.
Harinder Pal Sandhu and Saurav Ghosal played out of their skins to stretch the title favourite Egyptian maestros.
Sandhu was first up against former World no.1 Karim Darwish and the Indian matched the reigning Kuala Lumpur and Macau Open champion stroke for stroke at least in the opening game.
However, he was unable to hit the winners to seal the points. Darwish used his experience and superior craft to retrieve Sandhu's best attacking strokes and adapted to the conditions well to seal the game.
With his nose in front, Darwish proved unstoppable, racing away with the next two games for a loss of six points in total.
Ghosal put on a lion-hearted performance that won over the crowd against World no.1 Ramy Ashour. Ghosal managed to step up several levels to match and trouble Ashour in a match that could have gone either way.
Ashour found it hard to shake off Ghosal, putting pressure on the Indian no.1 with a lot of clinical volleys to the front of the court. The World No.20 Ghosal kept busy retrieving everything but did not do enough to win the game.
Ashour took his opportunities to win the opening game 11-7. In the second game, Ghosal was 9-5 up and was looking good, applying immense pressure on the Egyptian in front of the court.
Both players showed some unbelieveable skills retrieving from all over the court and surprisingly, it was Ghosal that was winning the big points. However, Ashour came back and manged to win the game 11-9.
Going two games down against the World no.1 would have sapped the spirit of plenty of men. But, Ghosal rushed off into an early lead in the third and his perseverence finally paid off, winning the third game 11-4.
