Joshna surprises Nicol, women in squash final
JAKARTA: Malaysian Nicol David’s reputation is intimidating enough to send shivers down the spine of most opponents. Unless, of course, your name is Joshna Chinappa.
Joshna had tasted blood last April, defeating the eight-time world champion in Egypt for the first time in her career. On Friday, at the GBK Squash Courts, the top Indian player did it again, upsetting the former world No 1 and gold-medallist in the women’s individual event here.
Joshna won 12-10, 11-9, 6-11, 10-12, 11-9 to guide India into the women’s team squash final, where they will meet Hong Kong, who beat Japan 2-0, on Saturday.
Dipika Pallikal then gave a power-packed performance against former world No 5 Low Wee Wern, easing past the Malaysian, who was laid low by a knee injury for over 20 months, 11-2, 11-9, 11-7 in only 25 minutes, the first game lasting barely five minutes. The 2-0 semi-final win assured India of a silver medal.
The men’s team couldn’t replicate a similar performance, going down 2-0 to Hong Kong in the semi-finals later in the day. Sourav Ghosal and Harinder Pal Sandhu both lost their singles matches as Hong Kong booked a place in the final.
A day earlier, there were moist eyes when India lost to Hong Kong-china in their last Pool B encounter in the women’s section, with many predicting a hammering in the semi-finals. Such has been Malaysia’s dominance in the sport that Nicol has won all but one individual gold at the Asian Games since 1998, when the sport was introduced, the aberration being the 2002 Busan Games where she lost to Hong Kong’s Rebecca Chiu.
In the team competition, introduced at the 2010 Guangzhou Asian Games, too Malaysia were on track for a hattrick of gold medals before Joshna and Dipika halted the run.
If Joshna was deft and agile on court in a match that rose to great heights, Dipika was all about brute force, wanting to finish it off as quickly as possible.
Dipika “drew confidence” from Joshna’s victory to crush Low. She was no match for Dipika’s shots hit with such pinpoint accuracy that retrievals were difficult if not impossible. Most of Wern’s returns made dull thuds on the ‘tin’, much to the delight of the huge contingent of Indian expatriates in the crowd.
NO PRESSURE
“Knowing Nicol, I was always on guard as she can turn the game on its head in seconds. With Nicol, nothing is over till it is over,” said Joshna. “Losing to Hong Kongchina in the last pool game was hard. But today, I played without any pressure. Happy that I could bounce back. I went back to the basics and thought if I play my natural game, things would happen,” said Joshna.
“We now just want to enjoy the final and beating the top team has given us a lot of confidence. You have to be at the top of your game to beat a player of such calibre.”
Dipika said Joshna must have been “mentally extremely strong today” to have beaten Nicol. “I told Joshna to be as aggressive as possible,” she said.
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Knowing Nicol, I was always on guard as she can turn the game on its head in seconds. With Nicol, nothing is over till it is over.
JOSHNA CHINAPPA, India player