SQUASH | Saurav Ghosal, Joshna to skip the Senior Nationals to be held in Chennai

Saurav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa, winners of the men’s and women’s titles respectively in the Senior National Squash Championship in Chennai in 2020.
| Photo Credit: M. VEDHAN

Indian stars, Saurav Ghosal and Joshna Chinappa have decided to skip the Senior National squash championships to be held in Chennai from November 17 to 23. Saurav has won a record 13 National titles while Joshna has bagged a mind-blogging 19 titles. However, Joshna will compete in the Goa National Games (November 1 to 5) while Saurav has decided to skip that too.

In the recent Hangzhou Asian Games, India had its best-ever medal haul winning five medals with two gold, one silver and two bronze medals. In fact, Saurav was part of the Indian men’s team which won gold and bagged a silver in men’s singles at Hangzhou and Joshna was part of the women’s team which bagged bronze.

Saurav and Joshna had informally told Squash Rackets Federation of India a few days back of their unavailability to participate in the senior Nationals.

Speaking to The Hindu, the 13-time National men’s champion said: “The Senior Nationals is a big event in the calendar, something I have always treasured playing and is very close to my heart. I am getting older, and I have to schedule my events [accordingly]. It has been a very busy year. I will be part of the Indian team in the World men’s team championship in Tauranga (New Zealand) from December 11 to 17,” he said.

Joshna said she had planned months before to take a few weeks off after the Asian Games to recover and start training again.

However, the other top players will participate in the Nationals. Among men reigning National champion Abhay Singh, Ramit Tandon, S. Velavan, Harinderpal Singh Sandhu and Veer Chotrani will be seen in action while among women Anahat Singh, previous edition’s runner-up, and Tanvi Khanna will participate.