The Hindu : Sport : Suchde upsets Ghosal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 24, 2005

Sport

Sport

Suchde upsets Ghosal

S.R. Suryanarayan

CHENNAI: Playing a steady game unseeded Indian, Siddharth Suchde wore down countrymate and seeded Saurav Ghosal in four games in a rousing quarterfinal match on Thursday in the ICL-Chennai Open squash.

It is not always that Ghosal commits so many errors as he displayed against Suchde with whom he has a close and healthy rivalry. The touch of lethargy in Ghosal's movement came as stark contrast to the zip in his Harvard rival's approach. Of course Suchde's inspiration soared high seeing the shackles Ghosal seemed to get entangled into.

As the 3/4 seeded, Ghosal was to admit to his coach, he ran out of ideas against a man who made minimal mistakes. The games went close, two of them infact getting resolved in tie-breaker but the Chennai lad for once had odds loaded against himself in this one-hour encounter that ended with both dripping in sweat.

Suchde will meet the top seed Kashif Shuja of New Zealand. The Pakistan-born player had trouble initially against the Hungarian Mark Krajcsak but soon settled down to his rally-based rhythm where his wristy deception stood out.

Parthiban defeated

Later another Indian Ayappan Parthiban met his downfall against the lanky Dutch Dylan Bennett. After his stupendous show of resilience yesterday there was expectation that Parthiban would spring a surprise for Dylan.

But except for the first game which went to tie breaker, the Indian found himself outclassed by a rival who specialised in firing cross-courts and slipping in the occasional drops. The day however ended with Ritwik Bhattacharya providing a touch of class in disposing of Timothy Arnold of Malaysia in straight games with little fuss. The former national champion Ritwik, the highest ranked Indian in the PSA circuit looks good for the big moment but first he has to negotiate the big built and temperamental Dylan in the semi-final on Friday.

The results: quarterfinals: Kashif Shuja (Nzl) bt Mark Krajcsak (Hun) 8-11, 11-8, 11-6, 11-6; Siddarth Suchde (Ind) bt Saurav Ghosal (Ind) 11-9, 11-10 (4-2), 10-11 (0-2), 11-7; Dylan Bennett (Ned) bt A. Parthiban (Ind) 11-10 (3-1), 11-7, 11-8; Ritwik Bhattacharya (Ind) bt Timothy Arnold (Mal) 11-6, 11-4, 11-8.

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