The Indian national champion Joshna Chinappa rose one spot to be ranked 14th as the PSA World Rankings for the month of February got released on Monday. Her compatriots, Dipika Pallikal and Sachika Ingale, meanwhile, remained static at the 17th and the 84th spots respectively.
Both Chinappa and Pallikal reached the quarter-finals of their most recent tournament – the Cleveland Classic – and would now look forward to bring that confidence into the South Asian Games this month.
Dipika and Joshna were indispensable to the Indian team’s success at the 2014 Commonwealth Games where they teamed up to win a historic women’s doubles gold medal. At the Incheon Asian Games that year, the girls contributed to two medals for the country in the team event and the women’s singles.
Saurav Ghosal is recovering from a fatigue fracture
Indian squash fans would hope that the other big Asian Games medallist – Saurav Ghosal – is fit enough by the time the South Asian Games arrives. Ghosal was a part of the gold medal-winning men’s team event and scooped up the men’s singles silver as well.
However, he suffered from a fatigue fracture in his right foot which prompted his withdrawal from the Hong Kong Open in early December last year and has not played competitively since. His ranking too plummeted as a result and he is now 20th, which is two places lower than his January ranking of 18th.
Harinder Pal Sandhu, who will also be in action at the South Asian Games, has jumped one spot to be placed at 66th in the latest rankings. Amongst the others, Mahesh Mangoankar has slipped to 67th while Kush Kumar maintains his 92nd ranking.
