India squash player Joshna Chinappa– who recently lifted her maiden WSA World Tour title with Winnipeg Open trophy beating Heba El Torky from Egypt – tells Wriddhaayan Bhattacharyya about her journey in Canada.

You have won on foreign soil before. How different was Winnipeg in terms of competition?
There were players ranked higher than me in the tournament. And I have never played in Canada before, the conditions were very tough. It was minus 22 degrees. Though the court has artificial heating but it is a cold country and I had never experienced that. I made sure I kept warm at home and don’t go out much. I had to bundle up as much as I could and train outside.

The ice storm even killed people..
It was dangerous. I missed both my flights because of the storm and had to wait at the airport for over 10 hours. Then I waited for five hours for the next one, even that did not take off and finally I managed to get there late.

Who were the best players there?
There was intense competition as the girls had been winning a lot of matches since past few weeks. They were in the groove. Nicolette Fernandes (World No.19), Joey Chan (World No.23) were some of the best ones around.

How does it feel to lift a World squash title considering the sport is still not that promoted in India?
The sport got a lot more popular in the last few years if not to the extent of tennis or cricket. As far as I am concerned, I go for these tournaments to do well and win. The recognition is nice if I get it but even if that doesn’t happen, I am fine with that. But people have been supportive, some Press people called me after the victory and it felt good.

How long did you train for this tournament?
I trained the whole of December till the middle of January, through Christmas and New Year when players usually take a break. I had good momentum, felt fit and wanted to build on that.

Was the training any different from what you normally do?
It was a lot on the field, lot of sprint and shuttle running. Lot of groundwork. I concentrated on variations of sprint. I spent hours in the gym too. I followed my trainer Rajamani and worked out consistently which made the difference in Canada.

Dipika won the same tournament last year. Do the opponents across the world take the Indian players as threat?
They (including the top 10 players) don’t take us lightly at all because they know if we are at our peak, what can happen. Dipika created that platform last year.

You literally won the final in dying minutes? What gave you that adrenaline rush?
Yeah I was 10-7 down. I honestly don’t know what happened, it was such a blur that moment. I hung in there, she made a couple of errors which helped me get back to the game. When I levelled it 10-10, I thought of not delaying it any further and was more aggressive to win the remaining two points.

Your thoughts on Heba El Torky..the youngster gave you a tough time..
She did but you know the funny part? I played her last week prior to the final and I won 3-0 pretty comfortably. Probably when I went into the final, I put a little bit of pressure on myself to play well. And she came into the game with a lot of confidence as she had defeated three top seeds in the tournament which stepped her game up.

Didn’t that 3-0 win make you overconfident?
Not really because before that win, I lost to her a couple of times in the last two years. I knew what she is capable of. I have always had close games with her.

Tell us about the Egyptians, what makes them the champion players they are?
I have been based in Egypt before for training. They have 30-40 squash clubs in Cairo alone and each club has about 100 kids playing. If you have that many kids playing each other in local tournaments or league matches, you are going to get better eventually. They also have a lot of idols to look upto like Amr Shabana and Omneya Abdel Kawy. That encourages the juniors to come up and aspire to be like them. They are also very fearless. When they get on court, they don’t care who they are playing, be it a top seed or any other player. They are also very skilful with shots.

You’d once said that you don’t relish playing against Egyptians..
I’d said that long time back but now I change my opinion (laughs). More than anything, I am pretty fit today and can hang on with anybody on court. I am a better player than before. At present, I can play anybody.

Joshna ChinappaSquashWSA World TourWinnipeg Open trophy

source: http://www.danindia.com / DNA / Home> Sport / by Wriddhaayan Bhattacharyya / Agency:DNA / Tuesday – March 04th, 2014

Uthappa stars in Karnataka’s 104-run win with a cracking ton against Kerala in Subbaiah Pillai Trophy.

The result was never in question and it was always about whether Karnataka’s batsmen can bounce back after couple of middling performances. Robin Uthappa settled that query with a fine hundred, making sure he never got ahead of himself at any stage, and Karun Nair fired some ammo in the end to push the score to 317

This prooved to be way beyond Kerala’s reach as Vinay Kumar grabbed another five for – 5 for 34, his best List A performance. Karnataka’s bowling yet again utterly depended on their captain.

Prem, stands out for Kerala Yet, Kerala had something to cheer about in the chase – a pleasing ton from the No. 3 batsman Rohan Prem who ensured the chase didn’t fold up quickly. Prem, a left-handed batsman, punched the seamers, drove and cut the spinners and was pretty busy between the wickets.

He rarely dawdled out there, looking for runs from the go. He drove S Aravind, who replaced Ronit More, to the straight boundary twice, and once to the square-leg boundary.

Pity about his team-mates, though. The teenager Sanju Samson struck a fabulous six- a flowing on-the-up hit over long-on off the seamer HL Sharath – but fell soon, chipping the leggie Amit Verma to long-off. Nearly everyone at the top order got a start but no one really carried on.

The second highest score was just 32 from Robert Fernandes and the chase was never really going anywhere. It was all about whether Prem can get his hundred and he did, bringing it up in the 37th over, with a fluent square drive off Aravind.

There wasn’t much sting in Kerala’s bowling as well. And so, Uthappa moved along without much fuss. He sent the new ball in the ‘V’ and once he realised there wasn’t much venom in the track or in the bowling, he opened up.

There was a slog swept six off the mediumpacer V Jagadeesh, a pulled six off the left-arm seamer Prasanth Parameshwaran and the fours never went dry. He late cut, swept and even pulled out the reverse sweep to bring up his hundred before he fell, giving a return catch to the offie Vinoop Manoharan.

It was a hot sultry day at Alur, some one hour’s drive away from the city of Bangalore.

It’s set of three grounds owned by the state association with temporary structures acting as dressing rooms. There were some 20-odd people who had turned up and Karnataka’s Nair provided some entertainment after the fall of Uthappa.

The Karnataka dressing room enjoyed it even more, in fact. “Well played Kulla (shorty) was the cry of joy everytime Nair banged a boundary. He swung Parameshwaran for a six over long-on before turning on the heat against the seamer Sandeep Warrier. He looted 21 runs in a over, carting two successive sixes – one flew over square-leg and the other over midwicket- and following it up with a four.

By the time he fell (60 from 30 balls), he had added 96 runs in 61 deliveries with Manish Pandey and pushed the total way beyond Kerala’s reach. Brief scores: Karnataka 317 for (Uthappa 104 ) beat Kerala 213 (Prem 103) by 104 runs Goa 268 for 6 (Kamath 65, Gadekar 61) lost to Andhra 272 for 6 in 48.4 overs (Ricky Bhui 103* in 79 balls, Dara Benjamin 90, Dasari 27*) by 4 wickets. Tamil Nadu 280 for 4 (B Aparajith 91,M Vijay 90) beat Hyderabad 155 for 9 (L Balaji 3 – 27) .

www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Sports> Cricket / Bangalore Mirror Bureau / March 03rd, 2014