CWG: Joshna, Dipika make progress

Dipika Pallikal beat Charlotte Knaggs of Trinidad and Tobago 3-0 and Joshna Chinappa defeated Lynette Vai of Papua New Guinea 3-0. A semi-finalist last time, India’s top player Saurav Ghosal after a bye in the first round, wasted a good start in the second round to suffer a shock 5-11, 7-11, 11-8, 11-9, 12-10 defeat at the hands of Jamaica’s Christopher Binnie in the second round of the men’s singles event. 

The unseeded lanky Jamaican thereby caused the biggest upset of the day when be downed the third seeded Indian. The 66-minute match had initially looked going Saurav’s way at a comfortable pace with the Indian leading two games but Binnie, who is over 50 rungs below his rival in world ranking showed his fight. 

Varying his returns with clever deception he had Saurav in a tangle. Levelling scores, the match went to the crucial decider when points went close until at 10-9 match point, Saurav thought he had gained a ‘stroke’ but the referee overruled it to as ‘let’. This is the first time that these two players are meeting each other. National coach Cyrus Poncha, reporting from the site, said “Saurav had looked good to go through but the reverse was unexpected.” 

A little later, Harinder who had gone past the first round in the morning, could not survive against the unseeded Malaysian Ivan Yuen. In recent times when the two met, Ivan always had an upperhand over the Indian and he proved his ability once again. Except for the first game where the going was close, the Malaysian had little trouble in finding his way to victory. Vikram Malhotra (seeded 16) sailed through to the round of 16 by the end of the day.

RESULTS: MEN: Second round: Vikram bt Xavier Koenig (Mauritius) 11-4, 11-3, 11-0; Harinder lost to Ivan Yuen (Mas) 8-11, 6-11, 1-11; 

First round: Harinder Pal Sandhu bt Cameron Stafford (Cayman Islds)11-1, 11-13, 11-6,11-8; Vikram Malhotra bt Manda Chilambwe (Zambia) 11-6, 11-5, 11-2)

WOMEN: Second round: Joshna Chinappa bt Lynette Vai (Papua New Guinea) 11-3, 11-7, 11-2; Dipika Pallikal Karthik bt Charlotte Knaggs (Trinidad and Tobago) 11-6, 11-5, 11-5.