Saurav Ghosal to play World No. 20 Ryan Cuskelly in the first round at World Championships

Saurav Ghosal will hope to have a good outing at the Men’s World Squash Championships

World No. 17 Saurav Ghosal will look to rebound from his recent early exits as he starts his campaign at the prestigious Men’s World Squash Championships in Bellevue, Washington on Sunday. The tournament is scheduled from November 13-22 and the main draw starts from November 15.

After winning the Kolkata International at home, the India No. 1 endured two opening round losses at back-to-back PSA World Series tournaments at the US Open and the Qatar Classic. The 29-year-old will surely be eager to reverse the trend at the World Championships when he opens against Ryan Cuskelly of Australia. The 20th ranked Cuskelly is coming off an inspiring run to the semi-finals at the Qatar Classic and will be a tough opponent for the 16th seeded Indian.

If Saurav can overcome the Australian, his most likely opponent in Round 2 will be the former top-ranked player James Willstrop. Current World No. 1 Mohamed Elshorbagy is also lurking in Ghosal’s part of the draw and is a potential third round rival.

The Kolkata player’s best performance at the global meet was in 2013 when he became the first Indian to reach the quarter-finals. He eventually lost to the-then World No. 1 Ramy Ashour in the last-eight stage.

Defending champion Ashour, meanwhile, is racing against time to recover from a hamstring injury that he sustained at the US Open in October. The injury forced the three-time World Championships winner to pull out from the Qatar Classic.

64 players will be vying for the title at the sport’s showpiece event. Out of them, 48 have got direct main draw entries while 16 qualifiers will be placed when the qualifying rounds are over.

4 Indians in qualifying rounds

World No. 57 Mahesh Mangaonkar and World No. 71 Harinder Pal Sandhu will both be playing in the qualifying rounds along with the USA-based duo of Ramit Tandon and Supreet Singh. While Sandhu starts against the 164th ranked Faraz Khan, Mahesh has a bye in the first round.

Both Tandon and Singh have an uphill task in the first round of qualifying. While Tandon faces the 86th ranked Steve Finitsis, Singh is up against the 83rd ranked Jaymie Haycocks.

All matches in the first round of qualifying are scheduled on Friday.