Vol 7 No. 2   Issue No.26   April 2003

JOSHNA COMES THROUGH THE FIRE WITH CREDIT

Joshna Chinappa

An Indian saying goes “Gold glitters only when it has gone through fire”. As Squash player, Joshna Chinappa has had more than her share of trials and tribulations in her career. Rigged matches, ‘briefed’ referees, ‘ disciplinary’ actions and even court cases to defend her right to participate in competitions-she has seen it all. Today, her perseverance, her parents patience and their determination has culminated in Joshna becoming the Worlds Queen of Squash in the under-17  Age Group. Pitted against Donna Urquhart of Australia who had earlier toppled the top seed on her first international outing, Joshna made a poor start and squandered a 0-5 lead due to unforced errors. However, she stabilized to recover to 5-5. A long rally saw her take the lead to 6-5. Alarmed, Donna reached for every shot as if her life depended on this, but could not  contain Joshna’s barrage of hard ‘lenghth’ shots mixed well with front court shots. Joshna led 8-5, Donna recovered to 6-8 but hit a ball out. Given ‘game-ball’ again, Joshna got a lucky ‘nick’ and won 9-6.

The second game saw a higher intensity of attack from Joshna, and the superb retrieving skills of the reed thin Donna which had unsettled other seasoned players in earlier matches. However, Joshna won 9-5. Two splendid  overhead kills from joshna in the third game saw her lead frcm the start to 4-0. Though Donna scored a few points, Joshna employed dropshots  from the back of the court-a difficult shot-nd was soon at 8-4, match ball. Then,a poor decision from the Referee in awarding a ‘No-Let’ when joshna should clearly have got a ‘Strock’, and the match, caused her to lose focus. She allowed Donna to reach 7-8 much to the discomfort of the Indian supporters, but it was evident that this was her day when she hit a volley nick on a service return on 7-8! Having got a second chance, she wasted no time to sieze the first opportunity to pass her opponent with a volley length to take the point and the championship 9-6, 9-5,9-7.

Joshna become only the second Indian ever to win a British Junior title,the first being Anil Nayar  in 1965. Saurav Ghosal finished at a commendable 6^th place in the Boys under –17 and Dipika at 13^th place.

Landmark Gujarat Open Squash Championship, Karnavati Club (2/2/2003)

           SETHI’S PRESENCE LIGHTS UP GUJARAT  OPEN

Right to left : Chandrakant Pawar, Mahendra Agarwal, Mr. Ashok Bhatt (Minister of Parliament affair, Gujrat), Amandeep Sandhu (Winner), Geet Sethi (guest of honour), Saurabh Gulati (Runners-up) & Narendra Gour (President, SRFG)

One of India’s all- time great likeable sportspersons, Geet Sethi, came to squash. That was the most important thing to have happened  next to the state of Gujarat having its own squash tournament. All thanks to Narendra Gour, whose foresight saw the staging of the Landmark  Gujarat Open Squash  Championship under the auspices of the newly- formed Squash Rackets Federation of  Gujarat at the Karnawati Club, Ahmedabad. The club was co- sponsor. The chief guest was Ashok Bhatt  (minister of parliamentary  affairs ), the guest honour was Geet Sethi. Other distinguished guests were Chandrakant  Pawar ( 9-times National  Pro Squash Champion) and Mahendra Agarwal  ( Director, Indian Squash Professionals ). Sethi expressed his concern over the poor performance of all the games in Gujarat. He said while the Gujarati community was doing commercially very well all over the world there were hardly any sportspersons who excelled in sport. The state government should do something  for the minority games like squash, billiards etc.

Mahendra Agarwal congratulated Narendra Gour for his efforts to form an association and for also organizing the first – ever Gujarat open, which will go down as a milestone in the sport. Narendra Gour said he was very happy to see 40 squash players participating in it. But he wished the younger generation took over this game for which he will invite coaches from Mumbai to train them all through the year.

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