India creates history at World Doubles Squash, wins three medals

19 August, Chennai

It was a historic first for India which had won three medals, including a silver, in the WSF World Doubles Squash Championships held at Darwin, Australia.

India had fielded four pairs in the championships–Dipika Pallikal and Joshna Chinappa (women’s), Dipika and Saurav Ghosal (mixed), Joshna and Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu (mixed) and Harinder and Ramit Tandon (men’s).

Except for the men’s pair, the rest returned with a medal each with Dipika and Saurav winning the silver.
National coach Cyrus Poncha described it as a “fabulous happening and the players deserve a pat on their backs for this.”

Seven countries took part in this event and from India’s point of view the focus initially was on the women’s pair of Joshna and Dipika because of their 2014 Commonwealth Games gold medal success.

But this was a championship where both had to share the additional burden in the mixed pair event as well.

As it happened, Joshna and Dipika could not go the distance in the women’s section, losing in the semi-final and settling for bronze.
Similarly, Harinder and Ramit did well in a strong field,but could not progress into the last four.
However the duo impressed in the play offs to finish fifth.

The two mixed pairs held attention more so because of their chances of facing each other. It happened, not in the final though in the semis and Dipika and Saurav came up trumps against Joshna and Harinder, the latter picking the bronze.

Dipika and Saurav in the final could not repeat the winning form of the league match against Paul Coll and Joelle King of New Zealand and settled for the silver medal.