One-sided matches were the order of the day as the main draw of the 63rd National senior squash championship commenced at the Squash Centre here on Thursday.
The seeded players got down to business and sailed through without breaking a sweat.
Steamrolled Ashish Keskar (Maharashtra) had struggled through six rounds of the qualifiers, but having got to the main draw lasted only 15 minutes before he was steamrolled by top seed Saurav Ghosal (Tamil Nadu) in the men’s singles pre-quarterfinals. Ghosal was all poise against his rival, winning the tie 11-1, 11-6, 11-2.
He will now meet teammate Velavan Selvakumar, who downed Vikash Jangra (Maharashtra) 11-8, 13-11, 11-8.
In the women’s draw, top seed Joshna Chinappa (Tamil Nadu) was on court for exactly 26 minutes.
Having overwhelmed Shikha Kumari (Bihar) 11-1, 11-3, 11-1 in 13 minutes in the morning session, the Tamil Nadu player needed just about the same time to get past B. Neeraja (Kerala) 11-2, 11-4, 11-2 for a place in the quarterfinals.
Second-seeded Harshit Kaur Jawanda (Delhi) swept aside Henna Muzafar (Jammu & Kashmir) 11-1, 11-0, 11-0 and Sunny Mehta (Bihar) 11-0, 11-0, 11-1 for a quarterfinal berth, while third seed Lakshya Ragavendran (Tamil Nadu) and fourth seed Urwashi Joshi (Maharashtra) were also on song, booking their places in the last-eight.
The results: Men’s singles (pre-quarterfinals): Saurav Ghosal (TN) bt Ashish Keskar (Mah) 11-1, 11-6, 11-2; Velavan Selvakumar (TN) bt Vikash Jangra (Mah) 11-8, 13-11, 11-8.
Sandeep Jangra (Del) bt Guhan Senthilkumar (TN) 11-5, 11-6, 11-9; Kush Kumar (TN) bt Maninder Pal Singh Sandhu (Pun) 11-8, 11-4, 11-5; Ravi Dixit (TN) bt Rishi Jalan (Del) 7-11, 11-4, 12-10, 11-4.
Vijay Kumar (TN) bt Abhinav Sinha (Mah) 11-8, 4-11, 11-5, 11-9; Gaurav Nandrajog (Del) bt Ranvijay Singh (TN) 11-3, 11-9, 11-4.
Women’s singles (pre-quarterfinals): Joshna Chinappa (TN) bt B. Neeraja (Ker) 11-2, 11-4, 11-2; Anandita Gupta (MP) bt Bhadra Asha (Ker) 11-2, 11-3, 11-2; Sunayna Kurvilla (TN) bt A.G. Arunima (Ker) 11-1, 11-2, 11-4.
Urwashi Joshi (Mah) bt Pavitra Rachel Varghese (Ker) 11-1, 11-0, 11-3; Lakshya Ragavendran (TN) bt Soni Kumar (Bih) 11-0, 11-1, 11-0.
Akanksha Salunkha (Goa) bt Kadambari Subrahmonya Sarma (Ker) 11-0, 11-1, 11-0.
Janmat Dulhan (Chd) bt Urfia Gul (J&K) 11-1, 11-0, 11-0; Harshit Kaur Jawanda (Del) bt Sunny Mehta (Bih) 11-0, 11-0, 11-1.
