Asiad 2018: Dipika, Joshana, Ghosal settle for bronze in squash singles (Lead)

Jakarta : All three Indian racqueteers in squash singles settled for bronze medals after Saurav Ghosal, Dipika Palikal Karthik and Joshana Chinappa lost their respective semi-final clashes at the 18th Asian Games here on Saturday.

Dipika lost 0-3 (7-11, 9-11, 6-11) to defending champion and former World No.1 Nicol David of Malaysia while Joshana went down 1-3 (5-11, 10-12, 11-5, 10-12) to another Malaysian Sivasangari Subramaniam.

Ghosal, meanwhile, wasted a two-set advantage to lose the men's singles semi-final 2-3 (12-10, 13-11, 6-11, 6-11, 6-11) to Chun Ming Au from Hong Kong in a cliffhanger.

Despite the reversals, this is India's best ever show in the Asian Games in squash singles.

In the 2014 Asian Games, India won two singles medals -- Ghosal had a silver and Dipika a bronze.

In the first game, Ghosal rallied remarkably to comeback from 4-9 down at one stage to take the lead.

The second game saw the Kolkata-based lad having a 4-0 lead but Chun Ming was not in a mood to throw in the towel and pushed his rival to the brink.

It was a very close contest at 8-8, 9-9 and 11-11 but Ghosal eventually had the last laugh with a winner to take a 2-0 lead in the match.

However, in the third set, from a lead of 6-5, Ghosal lost six points in a row to allow Chung Ming to make a comeback.

Dipika, on the other hand, led 5-2 and 4-1 in the first two games but three-time defending champion Nicol had enough experience to run away with a 11-7 11-9 11-6 win.

The 26-year-old had beaten Japanese Kobayashi Misaki 3-0 in the quarter-finals, while Joshana beat Hong Kong's Chan Ho Ling by a similar margin to advance to the last four stage.

At the Asiad, both losing semi-finalists bag a bronze and there is no bronze medal play-off.

David has won the Asian Games singles titles four times earlier.