Date:22/08/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/08/22/stories/2008082261232100.htm

Sport - Squash

Alankamony storms into last four

V.V. Subrahmanyam

HYDERABAD: It was the turn of Anaka Alankamony, a trainee at the ICL Academy, to hog the limelight.

She did that in style by shocking fourth seed Surbhi Misra of Rajasthan 11-7, 11-8, 11-8 in just 25 minutes to enter the women’s singles semifinals of the 56th ICL National squash championship at the Secunderabad Cub, here on Thursday.

Alankamony meant business from the start, taking a 9-4 lead in the first game. .

It looked as though Surbhi was keen to make amends when she fought back to level the scores 6-6, but she committed a few unforced errors which let the opponent come back strongly into the game.

Not surprisingly, Alankamony clinched the second one too and the script was no different in the third game as she clinched it at 11-8 and also the match.

Anwesha advances

Fifth seed Harita Omprakash seemed to be in a mood to create another upset in the women’s section, but third seed Anwesha Reddy held her nerves in a quarterfinal match that lasted 41 minutes.

There was very little to choose between them, but what decided the issue in the latter’s favour was her temperament and experience in crunch situation.

The results:

Quarterfinals: Men: Saurav Ghosal (TN) bt Mahesh Mangaonkar (Mah) 11-3, 11-6, 11-2; Harrinder Pal Singh (TN) bt Naresh Kumar (TN) 8-11, 11-7, 7-11, 11-9, 11-2; Siddarth Suchde (Mah) bt Ravi Dixit (TN) 11-9, 11-2, 11-6; Ritwik Bhattacharya (Del) bt Sandeep Jangra 11-8, 11-6, 11-2.

Pro-category: A. Prathiban (TN) bt Gautam Das (WB) 11-1, 11-4, 11-7; Rohit More (Mah) bt Sanjay Pawar (Mah) 3-11, 11-8, 4-11, 11-9, 11-5; Dalip Tripathi (WB) bt Rehman Sayyed (Goa) 11-8, 6-11, 11-2, 11-3; B. Balamurugan (TN) bt Vijay Wagela (Mah) 11-4, 11-6, 11-4.

Women: Joshna Chinappa (TN) bt Swati Mucchal (MP) 11-4, 11-2, 11-2; A. Anaka (TN) bt Surbhi Misra (Raj) 11-7, 11-8, 11-8; Anwesha Reddy (TN) bt Harita Omprakash (TN) 11-9, 9-11, 11-7, 11-13, 11-8; Dipika Pallikal (TN) bt B. Aparajitha (TN) 11-0, 11-2, 11-5.