Joshna Chinappa and Saurav Ghosal, two Indian squash players, won their respective singles event matches on Sunday to advance to the quarterfinals of the Commonwealth Games 2022 in Birmingham.
In the women’s singles, the seasoned Joshna Chinappa defeated the young New Zealander Kaitlyn Watts, 21, in the round of 16 match 3-1 (11-8, 9-11, 11-4, 11-6) to move to the next round.
Kaitlyn got out to a fast start in the first game, which caught the 35-year-old Indian off guard. Joshna, the current women’s doubles world champion, outperformed her younger rival by first tying the score at 8-8 before winning the following three points to take a 1-0 lead.
In the second game, against the Indian squash player ranked No. 17, world No. 95 Kaitlyn pulled off a reverse. Joshna took the lead at first but found it difficult to keep up with Watts’ speed. With time running out, Joshna roared back with improved placements to win the following two games 11-4 and 11-6.
Chinappa will face world No. 20 Hollie Naughton of Canada in the quarterfinals as she chases her first gold medal in singles at the CWG.
In the men’s singles, world No. 15 Saurav Ghosal defeated David Baillargeon of Canada with ease.
Indian squash player Ghosal defeated world No. 62 David Baillargeon 3-0. (11-6, 11-2, 11-6). In the quarterfinals, he will face Scot Greg Lobban, the 34th-ranked player in the world.
On Monday, the quarterfinal squash matches for the men’s and women’s singles competitions at CWG 2022 will take place.
