Chinappa top seed at Jaipur tourney

Jaipur: National Champion Joshna Chinappa and Malaysia’s Mohammad Ashraf will be the top seeds in the women’s and men’s sections respectively in the sixth Jaipur Club Harish Chand Golecha Squash tournament from August 30 to September 3.

Organising secretary Ashok Baheti said Joshna and Surbhi Mishra were the top two seeds in women’s section, while among men the position was occupied by Ashraf and Harinderpal Singh.

Ivan Yun and Vikram Malhotra are the third and fourth seeds in men’s category.

Jaipur Club secretary Dharmendra Kamthan said the tournament with the prize money of Rs 6 lakh had attracted around 300 players for nine events in different categories. The Squash and Racquet Federation of India has arranged two entries from Malaysia.

"Mohammad Ashraf and Ivan Yunn of Malaysia have given the tournament an international hue. They will be strong challengers too. Ashraf is among top four in his country while Ivan Yunn is under-19 champion of Malaysia," said Kamthan.

The major attraction of the tournament will be Joshna Chinappa who has won three titles here and is currently ranked 37th in world.

"She has performed exceedingly well in PSWC as well recently. Though the men’s section looks depleted with Indian national champion Saurav Ghoshal and Ritwik Bhattacharya being busy in PSA circuit," Kamthan said.

Gaurav Nandrajog is injured and local lad Partha Sharma is flying to USA for his studies. Apart from these the top players in country will be seen in action.

"Youngsters like defending Champion Harendra Pal Singh, Vikram Malhotra and Ravi Dixit have done well recently. Dixit was a member of the Indian under-19 team which performed creditably in the junior men’s squash championship at Zurich recently," Kamthan said. — PTI