Top seed Saurav Ghosal and number two Harinderpal Singh Sandhu lived up to their reputations to sail into the men's Open semi-finals of the 38th Bombay Gymkhana-HSBC Maharashtra State Open Senior Squash Championship here today.
Playing back-to-back matches, world no. 15 Ghosal, who has moved back to Kolkata after 12 years, eased his way into the last four with straight-game wins over Pranay Jain in the pre-quarterfinals and Chaitanya Shah in the quarters, taking some time to adjust to the court conditions.
World no. 80 Sandhu cruised past Laxman Joshi of Jindal Academy in the pre-quarters and Abhimanyu Shah in the quarters to remain on course for a clash against Ghosal in the final.
Joining the top two seeds in the last four was Ravi Dixit of Tamil Nadu, who halted Abhinav Sinha to set up a semifinal clash with Sandhu.
Second seed Urwashi Joshi of Jindal, and suburban Otters Club's Nikita Joshi registered convincing wins to enter the women's semifinals.
Results:
Men's Open Quarter-finals: Harinderpal Singh Sandhu (TN) bt Abhimanyu Shah (Maha) 11-7 11-7 15-13; Saurav Ghosal (WB) bt Chaitanya Shah (Maha) 11-3 11-6 11-6; Ravi Dixit (TN) bt Abhinav Sinha (Maha) 11-5 11-4 11-9; Aditya Jagtap (Maha) bt Rishad Pandole (Maha) 11-8 11-5 11-7.
Pre-quarterfinals: Ghosal bt Pranay Jain (Maha) 11-6 11-8 11-9; Sandhu bt Laxman Joshi (Jindal) 11-5 11-8 11-9; Dixit bt Yohan Pandole (Maha) 11-3 11-5 11-4; Abhimanyu Shah bt Aishwarya Singh (Jindal) 11-6 11-9 11-4; Pandole bt Shashi Pandey (Jindal) 11-6 9-11 11-5 11-8; Chaitanya Shah (Maha) bt Riyan Bhatia (Maha) 5-11 11-6 11-6 6-11 12-10; Jagtap bt Devchand Rai (Maha) 11-3, 11-1, 11-2.
Third round: Ghosal bt Aijaz Shaikh (Maha) 11-1 11-4 11-4; Sandhu bt Ganesh Kadam (Maha) 11-2 11-1 11-2; Dixit bt Vivaan Jaikishan (Maha) 11-5 11-2 11-2; Pandole bt Yohann Surti (Maha) 12-10, 11-3, 11-9.
Women quarterfinals: Urwashi Joshi (Jindal) bt Diya Sanghi (Maha) 11-3 11-1 11-3; Nikita Joshi (Maha) bt Abhilash Bhasin (Maha) 11-3, 11-6, 11-5.
