Wispa Indian Challenger 2011: Joshana Lost in the Final

Home favorite Joshana Chinappa nursed her hopes of winning the sixth titlebut succumbed to higher rated Donna Urquhart of Australia 3-1 in the 2011season’s first WISPA Squash Championship at the Indian Squash Academy Courtshere this evening.

Word number 16 and top seeded Urquhart won the match at 7-11, 11-6, 11-6,11-4 in 39 minutes.

As for the final encounter today, Joshna, who went in top the lead winningthe first game with telling strokes and decisive drives and held on to hersizeable lead before clinching the game at 11-7. Then on, Joshna remainedpedestrian as the Aussie made sure with her variety of strokes to wrap upthe match with confidence display in her three games win.

It was a case of Urquhart, who lost to Joshna in an NSC 3 championship in2009, analyzing the strengths of the Indian star in the first game andswiftly got to her rhythm and rarely kept Joshna in to rallies. With suchcommanding game plan, Urquhart was seen to be much relaxed and was notundulyworried even when Joshna was narrowing the lead on couple of times in thematch.

On the other hand, Joshna was in two minds in her approach shots in almostall the three games but was brilliant at times, especially in her shotsclose to the walls. Perhaps, Joshna lacked ideas to counter and rarelyanswered the call of fight and the sparse home crowd was obviouslydisappointed by her performance.

Later, Urquhart complimented Joshna as a talented player and he had tochange gears. “After losing the first game, I tightened up my serves asJoshna was able to return with elan. I am happy that most often I succeededwith my double boasts and was able to push to the corner to score points.Mainly, I concentrated on my game instead of trying to counter Joshnatoday”, she said

1 *Donna Urquhart, AUS, def. 4*Joshana Chinappa, IND, 8-11 11-4 11-5 11-6(39 mins)