Joshna Chinappa back in top 10 in latest PSA rankings

However, despite the improvement in her ranking, Joshna Chinappa and Saurav Ghosal went out in the quarterfinal stage of the $100,000 China Open, a PSA World Tour event. Ghosal who had an enterprising start when he downed the fourth-seeded Colombian Miguel Rodriguez of Colombia , produced another 76-minute epic in the next round which was the quarterfinal against Egyptian sixth seed Karim Abdel Gawad of Egypt before going down 9-11, 3-11, 11-8, 11-5, 9-11. Earlier he had started off brightly playing Rodriguez, when he covered a 1-2 deficit to a 3-2 win, in the first round. The 90 minute-battle saw him emerge 11-9, 8-11, 8-11, 11-9, 11-5 winner.

The women's section brought both the stars from India, Joshna Chinappa and Dipika Pallikal Karthik on view. The only difference was that Dipika had to come through the qualification phase. That was not an issue but Dipika could last just the first round, losing to the recent Hong Kong Open winner Nouran Gohar of Egypt, the third seed. Gohar won 11-5, 11-5, 11-6. However, Joshna, facing qualifier Heba El Torky of Egypt, survived minor moments of indecisiveness to beat her first round opponent 8-11, 11-8, 11-4, 11-7. However, against a tough opponent next in top seed Laura Massaro of England, the Indian succumbed in straight games 7-11, 5-11, 6-11.