Day of upsets at Squash tourney

Mumbai: Raghav Mehrotra upset top seed Abhimanyu Shah while unseeded Rishad Pandole shocked fourth seed and last year`s runner-up Vikas Jangra to storm into the under-15 semi-finals of the 66th CCI-Western India Open Squash Tournament here today. The day of upsets also saw boys` under-19 third seed Tushar Kothari of Rajasthan and boys` under-11 top seed Dev Vazirani and number two Aryaman Adik crashing out. Staring defeat at one stage, Pandole recovered from a 1-2 deficit and two match balls in the nail-biting fourth game to score a thrilling 11-9, 5-11, 4-11, 12-10, 11-5 win. Third seed Raghav Mehrotra of CCI beat Abhimanyu Shah of Bombay Gymkhana 3-1 to advance to the championship round. Fourth seed Yash Bhargav stunned No. 1 Dev Vazirani 3-2 in a thriller, rallying from 0-2 down, to set up a surprise boys` under-11 title clash with third seed Chaitanya Shah who shocked No. 2 seed Aryaman Adik by the same margin in another thrilling semi-final. In the other upset of the day, fancied Pranay Merchant of CCI halted third seed Tushar Kothari of Rajasthan with an impressive 11-7, 11-7, 11-6 win in the boys under-19 quarter-finals. Bureau Report