10-Sep-06:
National titles for
Saurav and Joshna

Sourav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa came through contrasting fortunes to pocket the men's and women's titles respectively at the 54th national squash championships on Sunday.

Ghosal, currently at 50th position in world rankings, razed down fourth seed Gaurav Nandrajog in a somewhat one-sided contest.

While 54th ranked Joshna beat Dipika Pallikal for her fifth straight triumph.

It was Ghosal's second national crown, which came after 44 minutes and fetched him Rs 40,000 in winner's cheque.

Nandrajog was a shadow of the player who had shocked top seed and world no 41 Ritwik Bhattacharya in the semifinal on Saturday.

His good performance was restricted to the third game when he rebounded from being 0-7 down to make it 6-8 and saved five championship points before succumbing to his rival.

"I made too many unforced errors, and I lost the ball from my vision frequently," said the 21-year old local lad.

Nandrajog, who was playing in his maiden final, received the ultimate praise from his conqueror.

"Ritwik, Siddarth (Suchde) and me are the top three in the country, and by beating Ritwik, Gaurav has shaken the apple-cart. We have to be wary of him now because he has improved a lot," said Ghosal after the match.

(PTI)

DRAWS & RESULTS

• Men - top half
• Men - bottom half
• Women

Quarterfinals:

Men: Ritwik Bhattacharya (Del) bt Naresh Kumar (TN) 9-0, 9-4, 9-1, Gaurav Nandrajog (TN) bt Harinder Pal Singh (TN) 9-7, 9-0, 10-8, Siddharth Suchde (Mah) bt Parth Sharma (TN) 9-0, 9-6, 9-2, Saurav Ghosal (TN) bt Parthiban Ayyapan (TN) 9-5, 9-2, 9-2.

Women: Joshna Chinappa (TN) bt Shubra Aggarwal (Del) 9-0, 9-0, 9-1, Surbhi Mishra (Raj) bt Shivangi Paranjape (Mah) 9-3, 9-7, 9-7, Dipika Pallikal (TN) bt Sruti Ashok (TN) 9-0, 9-0, 9-3.

Surbhi, Anwesha and Dipika

Joshna

Men - Round 1
Dr. Paramjeet Gill (ND) bt Bharat Gopinath (AP) w/o; Shantanu Shankar (ND) bt Yajuvendra Singh Rajpoot (MP) 9-6 9-7 9-6; Suhel Kapoor (ND) bt Fayaz Ah Ganai (JK) 9-0 9-0 9-0; Kushwant Singh (CHG) bt Nitin Masilamani (ND) 9-0 9-0 9-2; Raghav Behl (ND) bt Ashish Pal (HAR) w/o; Naresh Kumar (TN) bt R. Ramesh (Pondichary) w/o; Harish Khanna (ND) bt Manasvi (HAR) 9-3 9-0 9-3; Arunabh Bainarjee (ND) bt Sunil Shah (Gujarat) 9-0 9-1 9-0; Manzoor Ahmad Bhat (JK) bt Nitin Dayal Srivatsava (UP) w/o; Apurv Jalan (ND) bt Rohan Gracious (MAH) w/o; Om Shankar Dubey (UP) bt Vardhan Patel (MP) w/o; Abhas Sharma (ND) bt Ishaan (CHG) w/o; Harinder Pal Singh (TN) bt Nilesh Patel (Gujarat) 9-2 9-0 9-0; Ayush Maheshwary (WB) bt Aaswastik Joshi (ND) w/o; Arjun Bhalla (ND) bt Rajat Kaushik (UTT) w/o; Himanshu Shukla (UP) bt Surender Deswal (HAR) w/o; Aditya Mehra (ND) bt Sami Johnson (RAJ) w/o; Sikandar Kamal (ND) bt Deepanker Bose (UP) 9-2 9-1 9-0; Ramit Tandon (TN) bt Prateek Chalia (ND) 9-3 10-8 9-2; Kapil Muraji (RAJ) bt Sahil Grewal (CHG) 9-3 9-2 7-9 9-0; Anshuman Chowdhary (SSB) bt Bipin Batra (MAH) 9-2 9-2 9-5; Kshitij Seth (ND) bt Pushpendra Purashwani (MP) 9-1 9-1 9-2; Siddharth Sharma (ND) bt Ankush (CHG) 9-0 9-0 9-0; Vijay Kumar (ND) bt Mohd Amin Bhat (JK) 9-0 9-0 9-0; Sikander Khan (MP) bt Vikas Kumar (ND) 9-2 6-9 9-6 9-4; Karan Malik (TN) bt Karan Muttha (ND) 9-1 9-2 9-7; Vinay Thakur (CHG) bt Player 1 (.) w/o; Mohd. Saqib (UP) bt Jayendra Sukul (ND) 9-7 9-7 9-1; Anand Vashisht (HAR) bt Mohd. Shakir (ND) w/o; Ravi Prakesh (UP) bt Kaushal Kishore Singh (BIH) 9-0 9-0 9-0; Aman Sharma (MP) bt Aman Deep Siddhu (ND) w/o; Piyush Kesarwani (UP) bt Ayush Beriwal (WB) 9-3 9-5 10-9; Nikhil Jeet (ND) bt Uday Shankar (AP) w/o; Parth Sharma (TN) bt Mathew Cherrian (Kerala) 9-0 9-2 9-1; Shrreyans V. Gangwal (MP) bt Shri Singh (ND) w/o; Prabhaker Dubey (UP) bt Ramnik Singh (CHG) w/o; Gautam Sharma (RAJ) bt Harshit Jain (ND) 9-0 9-3 9-1; Paramjit Gill (HAR) bt Abhilakshy (CHG) 9-5 4-9 9-3 9-6; Vijay Shankar Dubey (UP) bt Sandeep Sharma (UTT) w/o; Parthiban Ayyapan (TN) bt V. Krishnan (Pondichary) 9-1 9-0 9-0; Varun Prakash (ND) bt Nitin Dutta (SSB) w/o; Akul Kumar Singh (ND) bt Shivesh Shukla (MP) 9-1 9-7 9-0; Saurabh Suman Agarwal (UP) bt M. K. Singh (UTT) 9-2 10-8 9-6; Imran Khan (ND) bt Anurag Gorodia (WB) 9-0 9-0 9-0; Pawan Sareen (ND) bt Ab Rashid Shan (JK) w/o;
 

Tandon steals show on day one
Press trust of India

Teenage sensation Ramit Tandon served a warning to his senior rivals as he stormed into the third round of the national squash championship in New Delhi on Wednesday.

Fourteen-year-old Tandon, India's number one junior player, made light of the huge difference in age and physique to first knock-out local lad Prateek Chalia 9-3 10-8 9-2 and then overcome Harjinder Singh 9-6 10-8 9-2.

"My idea was to keep them back and when the opportunity comes, to finish the stroke," said Tandon, who has five national titles in the Under-11, -13 and -15 age categories.

"Strokes are my strong point," said the youngster who hails from Bengal and has recently shifted to Chennai to train at the ICL Academy under Dhronacharya Awardee Cyrus Poncha.

Tandon showed good court sense as he worked the angles perfectly to catch his opponents off guard repeatedly.

Often, he erased deficits by winning five or more points at a stretch.

This is only the second time he is playing in the senior nationals, and the first time he played three years ago, he went out in the first round.

"I think I can reach the quarterfinals this time," the teenager said.

Tandon won the U-13 title at the Pioneer Open in Cologne, Germany, and the bronze in the U-15 category at the Dutch Junior Open last year.

He also won the U-11 titles at Malaysia and Hong Kong two years ago.
 

National Championship Draws

04-Sep, Semi-Finals:

Semi-Final
TAMIL NADU BT RAJASTHAN 2-0
(1) Harinder Pal Singh (Tamil Nadu) bt (1) Gautam Sharma (Rajasthan) 9-2 9-5 9-6
(3) Parth Sharma (Tamil Nadu) bt (2) Gunraj Singh (Rajasthan) 3-9 9-0 9-3 9-0

Semi-Final
SERVICES bt NEW DELHI 2-0
(2) Shakti Singh (Services) bt (2) Sohail Kapur (New Delhi) 9-0 9-7 9-0
(3) Navneet Narian (Services) bt (3) Muktiar Ali (New Delhi) 9-5 9-1 9-0

Day One, Two and Three Results