The top Indian squash players including Dipilka Pallikal and Saurav Ghosal cited reluctance in participating in the Asian Championships commencing on 1st May in Islamabad due to security risks.
Dipilka Pallikal and Saurav Ghosal are ranked 15th and 19th respectively in the world rankings. The Indian competition will be poorer without them. The other crucial players who are supposed to miss the event are Harinder Pal Sandhu (77), Chinappa (World No.25), Siddharth Suchde (57).
Ghosal declared that the way things stand right now, she won't be going there. All of them see security issue there. She would have loved to go in case the event been elsewhere. She would have been the top seed.
Apart from Dipika, World No.1 Nicol David from Malaysia has also quitted the tournament and instead opted to prepare for the prestigious British Open planned for 20th to 26th May. Dipika admitted that her parents saw a security risk inPakistan. She added that the tournament is not vital for the ranking point of view. She would have definitely gone in case it was organized elsewhere. They did want to risk arriving atPakistan--the first Indian to occupy world's top-10.
Srivatsan Subramaniam of Squash Rackets Federation of India (SRFI) disclosed that they were yet to take a call on this issue. They will declare it shortly. However the participation in the event is totally a players' decision.
The president of Pakistan's Punjab Squash Association (PSA) Malik Amjad Ali Noon quoted earlier in the month that India's presence in the competition was not important. He added that they are aware thatIndia is nothing againstPakistan in case of squash, so it hardly make any difference if they quitting.
