Dipika, Joshna and Saurav settle for bronze in individual squash

Dipika, Joshna and Saurav settle for bronze in individual squash

Jakarta: Dipika Pallikal Karthik and Joshana Chinappa settled for the bronze medal in women’s squash after a brief fight against their respective Malaysian rivals, who proved too strong for the Indians earlier in the day before Saurav Ghosal too made to satisfy with bronze medal in the Squash individual event at the Asian Games here on Saturday.

Saurav played a five-game thriller and led 2-0 before Hong Kong’s Chung Ming Au regrouped himself to put the Indian down and out in the Men’s Squash individual event. Saurav had won individual SIlver medal in the last Asian Games after losing to Kuwait’s Abdullah Al-Muzayen.

Earlier, Dipika was up against former World No 1 and defending champion Nicol David, one of the most formidable players the game has seen.

Dipika led 5-2 and 4-1 in the first two games but three-time defending champion Nicol had enough experience to race away with a 11-7, 11-9, 11-6 win in the semi-final.

The second semi-final saw India’s No 2 Joshana Chinappa take on Malaysia’s Sivasangari Subramaniam but lost in four games after managing to win the third in a closely-fought contest. Joshana lost 10-12, 6-11, 11-9, 7-11 in a match that was over in mere 35 minutes.

Dipika, who won a bronze 2014 Incheon Games too, said playing against Nicol was not easy.
“She is experienced and knows how to handle every situation, thrown at her. She was world number one for 10 years for a reason. I am happy I played well. It’s unfortunate that I was in top-half to play with Nicol,” she said.

The 26-year-old Dipika said she had to forget the defeat and get focused on the winning the gold in women’s team event.

“We have a gold to achieve in team event. you can’t think much about what has happened in the singles. It’s hard to regroup and comeback but we have to do it. We don’t want to celebrate as yet, we have a bigger target to achieve,” she said.

The Indian women’s team had won a silver in Incheon.

Asked if a few calls which went against her perturbed her, Dipika said, “We are used to it. It’s part and parcel of the game. She has been playing Asian Games for a long time, she is very experienced. I think you have take positives out of it.”

“Squash is about how fit you are, how much you enjoy the game. We can see she really enjoys the game. This is only my third Asian Games. Let the older one win here and we will comeback after four years and win.”

Results: Semifinals:
Men: Chung Ming Au (Hkg) bt Saurav Ghosal (Ind) 10-12, 11-13, 11-6, 11-5, 11-6.

Women: Nicol Ann David (Mas) bt Dipika Pallikal Karthik (Ind) 11-7, 11-9, 11-6; Sivasangari Subramaniam (Mas) bt Joshana Chinappa (Ind) 12-10, 11-6, 9-11, 11-7.

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