Saurav Ghosal to face top seed in Kolkata final

Kolkata: Indian ace Saurav Ghosal dished out an error-free display to oust Stephen Coppinger in straight games and set up a summit clash with top seed Marwan Elshorbagy in the JSW Indian Squash Circuit Kolkata International on Saturday.

Playing on home turf at the Calcutta Racket Club, the speedy Indian kept up a fast and furious pace that tired the South African from the first serve before wrapping up the issue 11-4, 11-4, 11-3 in 45 minutes.

"Saurav was just too good today," Coppinger said. "I just couldn't make any headway today. He was good and he was good for the whole match."

"I know Cops is playing really well," Ghosal said. "He hadn't dropped a game yet in this tournament. He was cutting every ball off and setting a high pace. So I had to be really precise and keep the ball off his racket as much as possible. Happily, for me, I executed the plan all right. The scores don't suggest how hard the match was."

In the first semifinal, the Egyptian top seed dominated the first two games, staying in front of Chris Simpson and sending the ball long and just out of reach time and again.

The Englishman's best chance came in the third game, when he stole two match points from Elshorbagy and went on to take the game through sheer grit and hustle.

It wasn't until the fourth game that Simpson started to get in the shots he'd been waiting to play all evening.

But it was too little too late, and Elshorbagy took the match 11-5, 11-6, 11-13, 11-6 in 55 minutes.

"These days happen," Simpson said. "I ended up running around like a headless chicken. Marwan deserved to win because he was a better player today. The ball wasn't going where I told it to."

"Today was my best day so far," Elshorbagy said. "I was struggling a bit the days before. Today I knew I had to be 100 percent to beat Chris. The third game was tricky. I had two match balls and I was disappointed to lose it. But at the same time, I was really pleased with the way I came back. I'm going to be focused and do my recovery work to be fresh for tomorrow," he said of the 5pm final tomorrow.