Saurav Ghosal makes it to semifinals

New York: India’s squash star Saurav Ghosal has reached his biggest semifinal on the professional tour in three years, beating higher-ranked Egyptian Youssef Ibrahim at the Tournament of Champions. The world number 17 from India staged a brilliant comeback for a 11-8, 7-11, 9-11, 11-6, 11-9 result in the quarterfinals at the iconic Grand Central […]

New York: India’s squash star Saurav Ghosal has reached his biggest semifinal on the professional tour in three years, beating higher-ranked Egyptian Youssef Ibrahim at the Tournament of Champions.

The world number 17 from India staged a brilliant comeback for a 11-8, 7-11, 9-11, 11-6, 11-9 result in the quarterfinals at the iconic Grand Central Terminal here. Ghosal had to use all his experience to prevail against a much younger Ibrahim. He meets Peru’s third seed Diego Elias in the semifinals.

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“It means so much, this is my 11th time here and I hadn’t gotten this far,” Ghosal was quoted as saying by Professional Squash Association (PSA), the world governing body. “I’ve been putting a lot of work in and it’s good to see it come to fruition. For it to come to fruition at somewhere like Grand Central Terminal is brilliant, I’m super happy.”

On his opponent, he added: “I don’t think you can call Youssef an up-and-coming player anymore, he’s chopping people that are much higher up. He’s playing at such a high level, it’s so difficult to play him.
“I had to be super disciplined in my head to execute the plan that David Palmer, who has been coaching me, had put together. He’s going to be around for a really long time entertaining a lot of people around the world. I’m just glad that today we had such a good match and hopefully we can have a few more before I walk into the sunset,” Ghosal added.