Commonwealth Games: Emotional bronze for Saurav Ghosal as he beats mentor's son James Willstrop

Bengaluru, August 3: Indian ace Saurav Ghosal created history by clinching the first-ever individual medal in squash at the Commonwealth Games (CWG) for the country, defeating England's former No.1 James Willstrop 11-6, 11-1, 11-4 in the men's singles bronze-medal play-off tie in Birmingham.

For the records, it was Ghosal's second CWG medal, having won a mixed doubles silver with Dipika Pallikal in the 2018 edition held at Gold Coast, Australia.

On Wednesday (August 3) evening at the University of Birmingham Hockey and Squash Centre, Ghosal proved too good for his former training partner and mentor's son Willstrop, who was also the defending champion.

Commonwealth Games 2022, Squash: India Squad, Schedule, Telecast & Live Streaming Information

Ghosal had trained under Willstrop's late father Malcolm Willstrop at Pontefract Squash Centre.

The senior Willstrop passed away last year at the age of 83, after a prolonged battle with cancer.

Ghosal first came across Willstrop at the 2002 World Junior Championships in Chennai where the latter helped mastermind the triumph of his son James and three years later, on the strength of that initial impression, the Indian ace took the bold move to relocate to Yorkshire.

On Tuesday (August 2), Ghosal's gold medal hopes had ended as he went down to New Zealand's Paul Coll 9-11, 4-11, 1-11 in the semifinals while Willstrop was stunned by 11-5, 11-5, 11-9 by Joel Makin of Wales in the other last-four encounter.

As the two training partners met in the bronze-medal tie, it was Ghosal who had the last laugh, bringing much cheers to the Indian camp.

Ghosal had looked sharp throughout CWG 2022, after seeming to have exorcised the demons of a shock second-round exit at CWG 2018 held in Gold Coast, Australia.

At Birimngham 2022, the 35-year-old ranked world number 15, defeated Shamil Wakeel of Sri Lanka 11-4, 11-4, 11-6 in the first round and then followed it up with 11-6, 11-2, 11-6 win over David Baillargeon of Canada in the second round.

In the quarterfinal, he recovered from a defeat in the second game to see off Scotland's Greg Lobbon 11-5, 8-11, 11-7, 11-3 before meeting his match with Coll in the semifinals.

But in the bronze-medal play-off tie, he dominated from the word go to clinch a first individual medal in squash, since it was introduced at the 1998 edition of CWG held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Earlier in the day, the mixed doubles pair of veteran Joshna Chinappa and Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu progressed to the pre-quarterfinals.

The immensely experienced Chinappa and her partner Sandhu downed Sri Lanka's Yeheni Kuruppu and Ravindu Laksiri 8-11, 11-4, 11-3. The Indians were a bit shaky initially and ended up conceding the first game.

However, they quickly turned things around and made a strong comeback to bag the next two games without breaking much sweat.

Sunayna Kuruvilla also defeated Fung-A-Fat of Guyana in the women's squash singles plate final. Sunayna downed her Guyanese opponent 11-7, 13-11, 11-2 in what turned out to be a comfortable victory for the 23-year-old squash player.

Birmingham 2022: Anahat Singh, India's youngest athlete at Commonwealth Games loses battle, but wins hearts

At Birmingham 2022, India also unearthed a new squash talent in Anahat Singh.

At 14, Anahat was India's youngest athlete at CWG 2022 and though the teenager lost in the round-of-32, she won many hearts with her gritty performance in the opening round.