Nov 08: Indian squash stars Ritwik Bhattacharya and Saurav Ghosal crashed out of the $120,000 22nd Cathay Pacific Hong Kong Open squash tournament ending up Indian campaign in the very first round.
Ghosal and Ritwik created history of sorts as for the first time two Indian players made it to the main draw of a Super-Series Squash Championship. But they could not get past the higher ranked players in this esteemed Super Series tournament.
While Ghosal meekly surrendered 4-11, 3-11, 4-11 to third seed and reigning world champion David Palmer of Australia, Ritwik fought hard before going down 6-11, 11-6, 11-9, 8-11, 5-11 to world number 18 and 14th seed Adrian Grant of England in an hour-long challenge.
Ritwik's was going good at the start but the Indian somehow lost the plot in the fourth game where he and Grant were tied 8-8 before the Englishman landed up with fine strokes.
It was Grant who dominated the decider as he used his experience to clinch a 11-5 winner moving into the second round.
Earlier, both India Cements Squash Academy trainees Ghosal and Bhattacharya, won their respective final qualifying round matches to make the grade in the 32-player main draw of the World Super Series Plantinum Event in Hong Kong on Tuesday morning.
Ghosal cleaned up South African Jesse Englebrecht 11-5, 11-9, 11-5 in 30 minutes while Bhattacharya came from behind to get the better of Chris Simpson of United Kingdom 4-11, 12-10, 11-7, 11-4 in 42 minutes.
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