Macau: India’s national champion Saurav Ghosal has moved into the semi-final of the $50,000 Macau Open, a PSA world tour event here on Friday.
After the early struggle in the tournament when he was stretched to five games by an Egyptian Mazen Gamal, a qualifier in the first round, the leading Indian,the fourth seed was in his elements against HongKong’s Tsz FungYip. Against the Egyptian, Ghosal had to come back from two games down to bring about a dramatic transformation. The 85 minute tussle ended 5-11, 8-11, 11-2, 11-3, 11-6 in Ghosal’s favour. However against the Hong kong player in the quarters the Indian did not concede much freedeom and carved out a 11-7, 11-5, 11-6 win in 38 minutes. Ghosal is to play the top seed German, Simon Rosner in the last four on Saturday.
As for the other Indians, Harinder Pal Sandhu who had ousted his junior partner Abhay Singh in the qualifying phase final, lasted one round in the main draw. Sandhu lost to Egyptian Omar Mosaad, the fifth seed but after giving a fight. The Egyptian won 11-1, 8-11, 11-9, 7-11, 11-2 in 65 minutes.In the women’s section Janet Vidhi was the lone entrant trying to make an attempt to qualify for the main draw. But she could not, losing the first round of the qualifying phase.
