Indian squash challenge ends with Ghosal's quarterfinal defeat

Doha, Dec 13 (UNI) Indian challenge in squash event came to a screeching halt with national champion Saurav Ghosal bowing down 1-3 to a much higher ranked Malaysian Ong Beng Hee in the men's quarterfinals of the 15th Asian Games here today.

Swept away in the first two sets, Saurav snatched the third but it was just delaying the inevitable as the Malaysian bagged the fourth set to complate a 9-1, 9-2, 6-9,9-4 win in 41 minutes.

Against world number 18 Hee, Saurav, whose own ranking is 49, could not settle into any rhythm with the Malaysian dominating the T and mixing his shots to deadly effect.

The Indian scratched just one point in the first set, which lasted four minutes and put up a marginally improved show in the second, managing two.

Saurav, however, refused to throw in the towel and showed impressive resilience in the third set.

Levelled 5-5, the Indian broke loose and lost one more point before going on to clinch the set and avert a whitewash.

Saurav began the fourth set with the same tempo and raced to 3-0 lead to raise faint hope of a fightback before the Malaysian decided enough's enough and put his foot down.

Hee came up with some increidble drop shots and wrong-footed the Indian rival on more than a couple of occasions. From there onwards, Saurav could garner just one more point as the Malaysian came from behind to win the set and seal the match.

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