India’s World No.26 Saurav Ghosal will appear in his biggest-ever PSA World Tour semifinal after the 31-year-old from Kolkata defeated Egypt’s Mohamed Abouelghar in the quarterfinals of the 2017 Channel VAS squash championships, PSA M100 tournament, at St George’s Hill here.
It was a day of mixed fortunes for India as Joshna Chinappa and Dipika Pallikal exited in the first round of the USD 50,000 Carol Weymuller Open in New York.
Ghosal had lost to Abouelghar in just 29 minutes the last time they played in September’s Macau Open final but he looked in good form coming into the match after following up a successful qualifying campaign with a surprise victory over World No.6 Marwan ElShorbagy in round one.
And he came back from 2-1 down to claim an 11-9, 5-11, 8-11, 11-3, 11-8 triumph in 68 minutes to set up a last four clash with top seed Mohamed ElShorbagy.
"I’m happy to beat someone like Abou, especially after I lost 3-0 to him in Macau three weeks ago," said Ghosal. "He’s been playing really well over the past 12-18 months and he’s played really well against the top guys, so to back up what I did against Marwan the other day and to beat someone of his calibre is pleasing.
"It was a really good match, I think both of us played some pretty high quality squash, so I’m really happy that my body and my mind were able to cope."
Joshna and Dipika succumbed to their Egyptian opponents. Dipika was unlucky to get pitted against the second seed Raneem El Welily in the very first round and it ended in a 11-8, 11-6, 11-7 defeat.
Sixth seeded Joshna faced a tough fight against Salma Hany who won 9-11, 13-11, 14-16, 11-5, 12-10.
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