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.
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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.
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