Ghosal & Co face tough challenge in Squash World Cup

Chennai: Led by six-time national champion Saurav Ghosal, the Indian racqueters will face a tough time

squashing challenge from formidable foreign opponents when JSW SDAT Squash World Cup begins here on Tuesday. Besides 24th ranked Ghosal, highest position attained by an Indian racqueter in the Professional Squash Association (PSA) ratings, the Indian men`s team will be represented by Siddharth Suchde (66) and Harinder Pal Sandhu (116) in the first world squash championship of the year to be staged from March 8 to 12. The women`s section will see India`s ace squash players Dipika Pallikal, ranked 23rd on the WISPA ratings, and Joshna Chinappa (35) in action for the mixed team biennial event, which is being held after a gap of 11 years. The matches will be held in a league-cum-knockout format. A total of nine teams have been drafted in two groups, who will vie for the top honours during the five-day long event with top two teams from each group moving ahead to battle it out for the summit clash. India, seeded sixth in the tournament, have been placed in group B along with top seeds England (2) and Australia (3), besides Mexico (7), while number one seed Egypt, France (4), Malaysia (5), South Africa (8) and Sri Lanka (9) have been drafted in group A. The first rounds of the Cup will be held at the Indian Squash Academy while the final rounds of the pool matches and the knockouts will be held at the lobby of the Express Avenue mall, where a temporary glass court will be set up. World`s leading squash players will star in the third edition of the World Cup, which offers a prize purse of USD 50,000 for the winners and USD 25,000 for the runners-up. Two editions of the World Cup were held in 1996 (Malaysia) and Netherlands (1999) but thereafter the event was discontinued. The revival of this competition had come at a time when World Squash Federation is increasingly working towards giving a boost to the sport in its bid to find a place in the Olympics. The road to success is going to be tough for Indian players with England and Egypt being the front runners in the men`s section and Malaysia and England being the favourite on the women`s category. PTI