Joshna Chinappa wins her 15th National Squash crown; Saurav Ghosal completes a dozen

Joshna Chinappa cruised to her 15th women's singles title while Saurav Ghosal secured his 12 men's singles crown at the National Squash Championship. Chinappa regained the trophy with an 11-6 8-11 11-2 11-4 victory over Ravendran.

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Joshna Chinappa regained the trophy with a 11-6 8-11 11-2 11-4 victory over Ravendran. (Source: File)

Joshna Chinappa cruised to her 15th women’s singles title while Saurav Ghosal secured his 12 men’s singles crown at the HCL National Squash Championship that concluded.

Chinappa and Ghosal, the flagbearers of Indian squash for the past decade, were stretched in the finals by Lakshya Ravendran and Mahesh Mangaonkar respectively before getting home in four games.

Top seed Chinappa, who had lost to Dipika Pallikal in the final last year, regained the trophy with a 11-6 8-11 11-2 11-4 victory over Ravendran.

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The World No 14 is now one shy of equalling Bhuvneshwari Kumari’s record of 16 national titles.

Chinappa’s main rival and longtime teammate, Pallikal, had pulled out of the tournament at last minute due to an ankle strain.

Later in the day, Ghosal got the better of Mangaonkar in a closely-contested final with the final scoreline reading 11 -8, 11-13, 11-9, 11-6 in favour of the Kolkata man.

It was the second year in a row that squash nationals offered equal prize money with eventual winners receiving Rs 1.5 lakh each.

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The total prize money of the tournament was a little over
Rs 11 lakh.