Anahat and Tanvi advance; Harinder Pal, Abhay in semifinals

National squash championships

Second seed Anahat Singh (Delhi) defeated Pooja Arthi (Tamil Nadu) 11-6, 11-8, 11-4 and Diya Yadav (Karnataka) 11-7, 11-2, 11-2 in the round-of-16 and quarterfinal matches to make it to the women’s semifinals of the 79th National squash championships at the Indian Squash and Triathlon Academy (ISTA) here on Tuesday.

Top seed Tanvi Khanna (Delhi) also had seemingly easy outings as she beat Tanishka Jain (Maharashtra) 11-7, 11-5, 11-1 in the round of 16 and Shameena Riaz (Tamil Nadu) 11-5, 11-4, 11-4 in the quarterfinal.

In the men’s quarterfinals, Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu (Tamil Nadu) claimed a straight sets win, 11-9, 11-7, 11-9, over Veer Chotrani (Maharashtra).

Veer remarkably saved four match points in the third game before Harinder closed out the match.

“I feel very relieved. I have only practised with Veer, but not played against him in a match. So, it was a bit new. And he’s coming from America with a good number of wins. He was obviously high on confidence.

“I just slowed down a bit (in the third game). I took it a little bit easy, lost a little bit of concentration. And that happens when the court is a bit colder. In the glass court, if you take the ball in the front in cold conditions, it pays off for whoever does it well. The ball doesn’t come back as much. And he did quite well then,” said Harinder after the match.

Top seed Abhay Singh brushed aside Guhan Senthilkumar 11-2, 11-2, 11-5.