India's Ritwik Bhattacharya brought cheer to the country as he stormed into the semi-finals in the Chennai Open PSA Squash Championship on Friday night.
Bhattacharya, ranked 83rd in the world, needed just 30 minutes to score a 15-11, 15-11, 15-5 victory over Stefan Leifels of Germany in the quarter-finals at the center court 'Thunderdome' soon after the 20-year old Pakistani Saeed Hassan stole the limelight, scalping third seed Dylan
Bennett of The Netherlands 15-10, 15-6, 7-15, 17-16.
Bhattacharya now has the tough task of beating top seeded Mike Corren of Australia tomorrow to gain his first entry into the final of such a high level championship.
The 126th seeded Hassan plays second seed Mark Heather of England in the other semi-final.
Corren managed to beat Khayal Muhammad of Pakistan in a marathon 82-minute duel, which witnessed a few unpleasant scenes as the Aussie indulged in 'physical' behaviour and argued with umpire Rajiv Reddy.
Corren, ultimately won at 15-13, 15-10, 12-15, 15-12, while Heather scored a fluent 13-15, 15-8, 15-9, 15-11 victory over compatriot Ashley Flathers.
Bhattacharya delighted the home spectators as he toyed with Leifels all through the match. After he won the first two games, he took things easy in the second, but was in his elements as he opened up new angles on the court with wrist-work of astonishing dexterity and languidly scored points.
In fact, he need just six minutes to win the third game to progress to the semi-finals.
Like in the Corren-Muhammad match, the tie between Hassan and Bennett also witnessed the latter barging in on to the Pakistani and was warned on many occasions for 'getting physical'.
However, Hassan, who has secured ten valuable ranking points from just two PSA events this year to move from 126 to 116th, displayed variety in his game.
Bennett adopted a quick pace in the first two games, which was won by Hassan at 15-10 and 15-6.
In the third, the Dutch caught Hassan at the wrong end quite often. Rightly, Bennett won the third rather easily at 15-7.
The fourth was fought tooth and nail and each collected negative points. Hassan trailed 12-14.
Here, Hassan switched to higher gear and proved to be a workhorse from the Pakistani stable. He played tight lengths in return to level the score and win the match.
It was a significant victory for Hassan as he quelled the challenge of Bennett for the second time. Hassan had beaten Bennett in straight games in the 2001 Scottish Junior Open.
In the National Natalia - Grand finals 2003 all matches went as per the ratings with the winners moving into the quarter-finals of their respective age categories.
