Squash player Sunayna Kuruvilla faced disappointment as the no. 1 seed lost her second successive final to Tanvi Khanna with the final score being 7-11, 7-11, 9-11 in the favor of the latter in the women’s final of the HCL-SRFI Indian Tour which was being held in Noida at the Shiv Nadar University, Greater Noida. This is a PSA challenger event.
In the men’s final, fourth-seeded player Abhishek Pradhan played his best game against the third-seeded player from Chennai, Velavan Senthilkumar. The player from Mumbai gave his best effort but it was to no avail as he lost 7-11, 6-11, 9-11 to Senthilkumar within 25 minutes.
Tanvi Khanna is seeded second in this tournament and was mentored by Asian Games medal winner Lalit Verma at Siri Fort Stadium in New Delhi. The title win was very sweet for her as she had to suffer from muscle spasms after she had to take a medical time out even though she was leading comfortably by two sets and leading in the third by 2-1. After the break, Sunanya, who was playing her fifth PSA final, looked rudderless and lost the third set and the game within half an hour. Tanvi mixed her shots with volleys which allowed her to win.
In the men’s final, Senthilkumar never allowed Pradhan to settle down and won the first two sets comfortably but in the third set, he faced a challenge from the Mumbaikar by engaging him with longer rallies and was able to tie the game. He lost a call at 9-9 and Velavan got the last two points consecutively to win the match.
