Squash | VAS Championship: Saurav Ghosal in semis but Joshna Chinappa, Dipika Pallikal exit in Round 1

It was a day of mixed fortunes for India in squash as Saurav Ghosal reached the semifinal of $100,000 Channel VAS Championship in Surrey but Joshna Chinappa and Dipika Pallikal exited in the first round of the $50,000 Carol Weymuller Open in New York.

After two rounds of tough qualifying phase, Ghosal showed his mettle by dislodging the third seed Marwan Elshorbagy of Egypt in the first round 11-7, 11-7, 11-2 to reach the milestone of 200 match wins in the PSA circuit. The Egyptian did not pose much of a problem but in the next round, the Indian had a tough customer in another Egyptian, the eighth seeded Mohamed Abouelghar.

Ghosal came back from being 1-2 down at one stage to convert the 68-minute contest in his favour with some shrewd control over the pace of the match. The Indian won 11-9, 5-11, 8-11,11-3, 11-8 to get ready for another Egyptian, this time the top seed Mohamed Elshorbagy in the last four.

However, in the US, 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.