Joshna Chinappa stunned World No. 1 and top seed Raneem El Welily of Egypt in the first round of the $1,15,000 Qatar Classic squash here on Saturday. The Indian national champion, ranked 20th in the world, won 11-9, 11-6, 4-11, 11-9. Joshna clinched the first two games without much difficulty. The Egyptian pulled one back and led 9-5 in the fourth but Joshna bagged the next six straight points to leave the top seed stunned.
This is the first time that she was beating a player in the top five in the world ranking.
In another match, Dipika Pallikal went down to Yathreb Adel 5-11, 7-11, 7-11. Joshna will play Adel next.
India’s Saurav Ghosal is in the fray in the men’s section and will play his first match on Sunday.
PTI reports
“This is by far the best win of my career — it doesn’t get any better than beating the player at the top of the world rankings,” said Joshna. “I’ve played Raneem many times before so to get out to a 2-0 lead was huge and really gave me hope,” she said.