Ghosal-Chinappa mixed pair wins in Squash cwg medal tally

Ghosal-Chinappa mixed pair wins in Squash cwg medal tally : Egged on by a capacity crowd at the Siri Fort Sports Complex, the fourth seed mixed doubles pair of Saurav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa came out with a heartening performance to lead the Indian charge in the squash team events of the Commonwealth Games here on Saturday. Four Indian pairs emerged victorious in their respective Group stage matches on the opening day of the doubles team events which also saw other top seed pairs including Nick Matthew/Adrian Grant of England and Australia's David Palmer/Stewart Boswell and Kasey Brown/Cameron Pilley dominating the all-glass court.

Chennai-girl Chinappa, who paired up with Saurav Ghosal in the mixed doubles category after Dipika Pallikal pulled out of the Commonwealth doubles events due to a mild fever, ably supported her Kolkata partner Ghosal in front of the capacity crowd, vociferously cheering for them.

The pair defeated Cayman Island's Marlene West and Cameron Stafford 11-6, 9-11, 11-5 in 30 minutes. They will next take on Scottish ninth seed pair of Alan Clyne and Frania Gillen Buchert.

In the first game, both were classy in their approach and execution of shots and dead drops for winners. The next saw some fiery exchange of long rallies and backhand winners before the Indian pair committed a slight error of judgement to hand over the second game to their opponent.

In the decider, Ghosal-Chinappa pair showed athleticism with soft drop shots and dying length to the back corners to win on 11-5 points and seal the issue.

"We both played really well today. Joshna is a good player and we have paired up before so we know each other's game well. I am particularly happy that we rose to the occassion in front of the home crowd after Dipika opted out of the event due to her illness," Ghosal said.

"Saurav has been great with the ideas and I need to just implement it in my game. We have given good performance as a pair and adopted well to the situation. We are hopeful of performing well in the remaining matches," Chinappa said.

In the other three matches of the evening session, 11th seed men's doubles pair of Sandeep Jangra and Harinder Pal Sandhu defeated unseeded Bangladeshi pair of Shopon Pervez and Masud Rana 11-2 11-3 in just 10 minutes to top Pool-6.

Earlier in the day, the pair rallied from a set down to secure a win over unseeded Ugandian pair of Michael Kawooya and Ian Rukunya 8-11 11-4 11-3 in 26 minutes.

Indians maintained their focus to the optimum throughout the match and scored a deserving win over their lesser known opponent. It was business as usual for both Sandhu and Jangra who were classy in their approach and execution of shots and dead drops for winners.