Egypt retain WJW; India secures best ever result

Egypt beat Hong Kong in the finals, while India came 3rd

Final:
[1] EGYPT bt [6] HONG KONG 2/0

Ritwik wins Indian challenger # 1

After losing to his national rival in two previous PSA Tour event finals on home soil in India, Ritwik Bhattacharya bravely fought back from two-games-to-one down to beat Indian compatriot Saurav Ghosal, the event favourite, to make it third time lucky in the climax of the inaugural Indian Challenger No1 an event supported by the Union Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports at the ICL Squash Academy in Chennai.

56th ICL senior National squash championship: Semis

Men: Saurav Ghosal bt Harrinder Pal Singh 11-8, 11-4, 14-12; Siddharth Suchde bt Ritwik Bhattacharya 11-6, 7-11, 11-8, 11-4.

Pro: A. Prathiban bt Rohit More 11-2, 11-7, 11-3; B. Bala Murugan bt Dalip Tripathi 11-7, 11-8, 11-7.

Women: Joshna Chinappa bt Anaka Alankamony 11-7, 11-6, 11-5; Dipika Pallikal bt Anwesha Reddy 11-6, 11-7, 11-8.

WJM – Team Event

Day I – Team Event

India got off to a fine start in the team championships of the 15^th World Junior Men’s Squash Championship here in Zurich. India in Pool E has been seeded 5^th along with USA, Netherlands and Venezuela.

Our first match in the team championships was against Venezuela. For this match Vikram Malhotra our no. 1 player was rested for the coming matches. The 3 players fielded performed creditably against much weaker oppositions.

Results:

Aditya Jagtap bt Daniel Prato 9-0, 9-0, 9-0

Ramit Tandon bt Wilfredo Arcia 9-2, 9-0, 9-0

Ravi Dixit bt Alejandro Saurez 9-1, 9-0, 9-1

India has been seeded 5th. In our pool we have USA, Netherlands and Venezuela. The complete seedings are –

1 EGYPT, 2 PAKISTAN, 3 ENGLAND, 4 FRANCE, 5 INDIA, 6 MALAYSIA, 7 GERMANY, 8 HONG KONG, 9 NEW ZEALAND, 10 CANADA, 11 AUSTRALIA, 12 USA, 13 SOUTH AFRICA, 14 SWITZERLAND, 15 KUWAIT, 16 WALES, – and, 17/24: FINLAND, CZECH REPUBLIC, DENMARK, BELGIUM, NETHERLANDS, GUATEMALA, SPAIN and SWEDEN; and 25/31: IRELAND, BERMUDA, CAYMAN ISLANDS, CHINA , ECUADOR, ITALY and VENEZUELA.

WJM – Day 2

Vikram and Aditya move into the next round.

Vikram cruised to the round of 32 after defeating young Fahad B. Al-Ramezy from Kuwait and Joshua Larkin from Australia in straight games. Vikram had no problems in both matches and will be up against Petrucci Camille from France tomorrow.

Aditya too joined Vikram in the round of 32 but had to dig deep to overcome a determined Frederick Reid from Canada who used his volleys and drops to telling effect against the lanky Aditya who gave every ounce of his energy.

Chennai To Host World Doubles Championships In December

The 2008 World International Doubles Squash Championships, which will be staged in India in December, will be the first international tournament to feature the new wider doubles court. The 4th staging of the Championships, which were inaugurated in 1997 in Hong Kong, will take place at the ICL Squash Academy in Chennai, from 15-20 December.

Sub-Jr. / Jr. National Championships 2007 – Mayo College, Finals

B11: Yohan Pandole {MAH} beat Roshan Kanna {TN} 7-9 10-9 9-3 9-2
B13: Kush Kumar {DEL} beat Deepak Mishra {DEL} 7-9 8-10 10-9 9-2 9-1
B15: Mahesh Mangaonkar {MAH} beat Abhishek Pradhan {MAH} 8-10 9-5 9-1 7-9 9-1
B17: Aditya Jagtap {MAH} beat Ravi Dixit {TN} 4-9 9-4 0-9 9-5 9-3
B19: Harinder Pal Singh {TN} beat Parth Sharma {TN} 9-7 3-9 7-9 9-5 9-7
G11: Pankhuri Malhotra {DEL} beat Adya Advani {DEL} 9-1 9-4 9-1
G13: Urvashi Joshi {MAH} beat Disha {RAJ} 9-0 9-1 9-4
G15: Anaka Alankamony {TN} beat Saumya Karki {MAH} 9-0 9-4 9-6
G17: Harita Omprakash {TN} beat Dheeya Somaiya {MP} 4-9 9-3 7-9 9-4 9-0
G19: Dipika Pallikal {TN} beat V Anwesha Reddy {TN} 9-7 10-8 9-6

Graham Ford nominated as India’s cricket coach

Graham Ford has been nominated as the next Indian cricket coach. He was had taken over from Bob Woolmer as the coach of the South African team from 1999 to 2002, guiding them to 8 Test series wins out of 11 (only loss against the Aussies) . Update: Ford has decided to stay back at Kent and not take up the assignment

PSA/WISPA world squash ranking

42 Saurav Ghosal
51 Ritwik Bhattacharya
157 Harinder Pal Sandhu
176 Naresh Kumar
200 Parthiban Ayappan
211 Gaurav Nandrajog
231 Parth Sharma
238 Siddharth Suchde

40 Joshna Chinappa
80 Dipika Pallikal
110 Surbhi Misra, Anwesha Reddy

Squash declared a priority sport by govt

The Ministry for Youth Affairs and Sports revised its categorization of sports disciplines in the country and has made squash one of the priority sports in the country. This comes in a wake of India achieving its first medal in the 2006, Asian Games held in Doha and Indian players like Saurav Ghosal and Ritwik Bhattacharya reigning the top 50 list of best players in the world.

Says N.Ramachandran, Secretary General, Squash Rackets Federation of India, “Its truly fabulous that Indian Squash is getting its much deserved recognition. This means a better funding from the government and increased opportunities for the federation to improve the infrastructural facilities of the state associations. The federation is keen to harness the talent of these junior players by giving them exposure to all international tournaments”

Cyrus Poncha National Coach, SRFI “This means motivation for all the aspirant squash players and a better scope of sincere participation to bring the sport to the forefront of Indian sports”.

Other than the men, the sport has also witnessed a steep rise in the participation figures in the women’s category. Apart from Joshna Chinnappa there are junior players like Dipika Pallikal, Anwesha Reddy, Aparajitha Balamurukan, Saumya Karki, Anaka Alankamony, Harita Omprakash etc.  Anaka and Saumya were the semi finalists at the British Open held last year.

Coach of the Gold Medal Women’s Team at the SAF Games, 2004 and Gold Medal Asian Junior Women’s Team in Pakistan 2003, Cyrus explains the situation “There used to be days when matches were cancelled for no participation of women. But the situation is definitely improving now with new possibilities in the current women’s junior team.” The boys who are turning out to be safer bets include Harinderpal Singh, A. Parthiban, Naresh Kumar and Parth Sharma climbing higher in the recent world rankings.

Articles in the newspapers