Indian stars Ritwik Bhattacharya and Saurav Ghosal kept the tricolour flying high while three of their compatriots bit the dust in the pre-quarter-finals of the one-star ICL PSA World Professional Squash championship in Chennai on Thursday.
Both Bhattacharya and Ghosal won their respective matches in straight games, while top seeded Khayal Muhammad Khan, who arrived this afternoon, did not find any difficulty in ousting Naresh Kumar of India 11-6,11-10(5-3),11-7 making his first appearance in a World championship.
Bhattacharya beat Rob Sutherland of Wales at 11-9,11-4, 11-6, while Ghosal disposed of Delhi's Gaurav Nandrajog 11-5, 11-10 (2-0), 11-5.
In Friday's quarter-finals, second-seeded Bhattachaya will play fifth seed Yasir Butt of Pakistan while fourth seed Ghosal will clash with seventh seed Tom Richards of England, who accounted for Parthiban Ayappan (Ind) 11-9, 11-7, 11-5.
Yasir Butt eliminated Harindepal Singh of India 11-5, 11-6, 11-7.
Following are the other pre-quarter-final results: Majid Khan (Pak) bt Neil Hitchens(Eng) 11-6, 11-7, 11-7, Wai Hang Wong (HK) bt Marton Zaboky (Hungary) 11-8, 11-3, 11-3, Dylan Bennett (Holland) bt Timothy Arnold(Mal) 7-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-7.