Indian squash players Dipika Pallikal Karthik, Joshna Chinappa and Saurav Ghosal had to be content with bronze medals after losing to their respective opponents in the semi-finals of the 18th Asian Games in Jakarta on Saturday.
In the women’s singles semi-finals, Dipika lost to defending champion Nicol David of Malaysia while Joshna was shown the door by Malaysian Sivasangari Subramaniam of Malaysia while top seed Ghosal lost to Chung Ming Au of Hong Kong China 12-10, 13-11, 6-11, 6-11, 6-11 in the men’s singles semifinals.
In the first women’s semi-final, Dipika, who won a bronze medal in 2014 Asian Games, lost to the Malaysian stalwart and former world number one David 0-3 (7-11 9-11 6-11). David has won the Asian Games singles titles four times earlier. The Indian had beaten Japanese Kobayashi Misaki 3-0 in the quarter-finals.
Later in the day, Joshna failed to match up to the level of her 19-year-old opponent, losing 10-12, 6-11, 11-9, 7-11.
It looked like Ghosal, who won the silver medal four years ago, could break the run of semi-final losses when he took a 2-0 lead against Au but a leg injury seemed to have put paid to his chances as he lost the next three games to lose the match.