India's Saurav Ghosal defeated Jonathan Kemp in the opening round of the men's competition today while Joshana Chinappa qualified for the women's main draw, at the Allam British Open Squash Championships in Hull, England.
Ghosal, ranked 19 in the world, sailed past the the Englishman 11-9, 11-6, 11-6 to move into pre-quarterfinals at the KC Stadium.
He will take on the winner of the match between fourth seed Gregory Gaultier or Alister Walker, tomorrow.
"I am just glad to get through in three games against someone as talented as Kemp. He doesn't give you any rhythm to play with, so I just had to keep it as tight as I could and he wasn't able to do what he sometimes can - last time we played it was 11/9 in the fifth," Ghosal was quoted as saying by the tournament website.
In the women's category, 26th-ranked Chinappa resisted a tough challenge from Deon Saffery (48) of Wales, to emerge winner by 11-13, 11-9, 11-9, 11-5 and enter the main draw.
"I hope that my game has improved, I've been training very hard with Ritwick (Bhattacharya) for about a year and a half now, since I came back from a knee injury. And we started from scratch really, from fitness to spending more time on court," Chinappa said.
India's highest ranked player Dipika Pallikal (15) will play her first round match against Denmark's Line Hansen (22) tomorrow.
