Saurav Ghosal to the semifinals, against Paul Coll » FirstSportz

India’s Saurav Ghosal used all his experience to record a comfortable 3-1 win against world No. 34 Gregory Lobban in the men’s singles quarterfinals at the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham.

Ghosal, 35, beat the Scot 11-5 in the first set but Lobban fought back and won the second 11-8. The hard-fought third set was punctuated by multiple video recommendations before Ghosal won 11-7. Ghosal took an early lead in the fourth set and kept the pressure on the Scot to eventually win 11-3.

Ghosal, a former world No. 10, will next face the reigning British Open champion Paul Coll New Zealand in the semifinals. World No. 2 Coll, a Birmingham gold medal favorite, overtook England’s Adrian Waller in the quarter-finals by a score of 12-10 11-4 11-7.

This is the second time that Ghosal, currently No. 15 in the world, has made it to the CWG Men’s Singles Semifinals; He made the last four eight years ago at Glasgow 2014, where he lost in the semifinals to former world No. 1 James Willstrop and then to Peter Barker in the bronze medal match. In the singles of the 2018 edition, Ghosal had suffered a shock round of 32.

Interestingly, Ghosal had beaten Coll in the 2014 CWGs, but the New Zealander has improved massively since then. Coll has a 3-0 head-to-head advantage over Ghosal.

Ghosal will attempt to win his first CWG singles medal in what may be his last appearance at the biannual event. He already has a mixed doubles silver from 2018.

Joshna Chinappa crashes in quarterfinals

India No. 1 Joshna Chinappa lost their quarterfinal game against Canada 0:3 Hollie Naughton. A close match was expected between current world No. 17 Joshna and world No. 20 Naughton but the Canadian managed to win in straight sets.

Joshna took an early lead in the first set but soon gave the advantage to Naughton who eventually won 11-9. Naughton outclassed Joshna with an 11-5 win in the second sets. Joshna tried to fight back in the third set but managed to lose four game points to eventually lose 13-15.

Joshna had also lost in the quarterfinals in 2018. She will be in action at the mixed and women’s doubles events in Birmingham.