Joshna, Saurav seeded second

This is the third time Chennai is hosting the event (after 2002 and 2010) and the matches will be held at the Indian Squash Academy courts and at the Express Avenue Mall. 

The Indians in the fray will be Vikram Malhotra, Mahesh Mangaonkar, Harinder Pal Sandhu, Velavan Senthilkumar and Aditya Jagtap in the men’s section while Dipika Pallikal Karthik, Sachika Ingale, Sunayna Kuruvilla, Urwashi Joshi and Lakshya R will compete in the women’s group.

The participation of players from Pakistan is under a cloud after visa issues cropped up but championship director Cyrus Poncha said there has been no official confirmation on the same and there will be not much of a scheduling issue. “We haven’t received any mail after a correspondence last Friday. In any case, there is just one player in the top8 and we will move up the ninth to the 16th seeded players by one slot,” Poncha added.