The Sports-India Community

The current India #1, Ritwik became the first Indian to play in the main draw of the world open championship -- and came mighty close to beating the 8th seed Lee Beachill. Ritwik is ranked around #83 in the world, and looks set to rise steadily this year.

Ritwik's ranking already moved up to 68th spot this year, after PSA Chennai open and world open apperance.

Kathir

Upcoming tournaments for RitwikB;

Sheikha Al Saad
Kuwait Open 2004, $65k, 23-28 January, Kuwait City, Kuwait

Ritwik is 1st in alternative list

Hope he squeezes into the qualifying rounds.

Artemis Edinburgh Open 2004Edinburgh, Scotland
29-Jan to 01-Feb, £5000

1st round, 30 Jan ’04 - Ritwik Bhattacharya (14.30) v. Qualifier 4

Malaysia Airlines
KL Open Squash Championships '04, $11k,
10-15 Feb, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

1st round, 12 Feb ’04 - [7] Ritwik Bhattacharya (Ind)
Callum O'Brien (Nzl)


Kathir

Ritwik remains as the first alternate for the qualifier tournament preceding the Kuwait Open. I hope he gets into the qualifier otherwise the Artemis Edinburgh Open from Jan 29th will be his next tournament.

Ritwik has also entered in the Chezh open and Belgian open in Feb '04, and he is seeded 7 & 5 in these $6k events respectively.

soooo..a lot of squash ahead..go ritwik!!

Kathir

Ritwik could not make the qualifier draw at Kuwait Open.

Men's qualifying draw - first round:

Omar Elborolossy (Egy) bt Liam Kenny (Irl) 13/15, 15/6, 15/12, 15/11 (64m)
James Willstrop (Eng) bt Shamsul Islam Khan (Pak) 15/8, 15/6, 15/9 (31m)
Moh'd Azlan Iskanda (Mas) bt Abdullah Al Muzayen 15/5, 17/15, 15/11 (41m)
Renan Lavigne (Fra) bt Ali Al Ramzi 15/11, 15/9, 15/8 (39m)
Hisham Moh'd Ashour (Egy) bt Farrukh Zaman (Pak) 9/15, 15/5, 15/6, 15/11 (52m)
Mark Chaloner (Eng) bt Bader Al Hussaini (Quw) 15/14, 15/6, 15/14 (52m)
Nick Taylor (Eng) bt Jago Nardelli (Eng) 15/4, 15/13, 15/6 (35m)
Dan Jenson (Aus) bt Nick Matthew (Eng) 15/12, 15/9, 15/13 (74m)

Edinburgh Open, Scotland:

Ritwik lost in the first round to Peter O'Hara (15/7 13/15 17/16 15/8?)

Kathir

There are obviously many fewer squash tournaments than tennis ones...which probably explains why a guy like Ritwik (#68) can't even make the qualifying rounds of the Kuwait Open. Or was it a scheduling problem?

PKB, most of the squash pro tournaments have a field of 16 players, and usually the field of the qualifiers is even smaller. Hence players like Ritwik with a ranking above 40 or 50 have trouble getting into tournaments with a larger prize money.

Hopefully now that Ritwik has signed up with GS things are a little better monetarily so he can try and get into a few of these tourneys and raise his ranking high enough to get automatic entries without the qualifiers hassle

KL Open Squash Championships '04, $11k,
10-15 Feb, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia:

1st round, 12 Feb ’04 - [7] Ritwik Bhattacharya (Ind) bt.
Jago Nardelli (Eng)

Kathir

Tough match ahead for Ritwik in the 2nd round (Quarterfinal) today.

(7) Ritwik Bhattacharya (IND) vs. (1) TOMMY BERDEN (NED)

Go Ritwik!!

Kathir

Go Ritwik and take out Tommy Berden the #1 seed.

Ritwik lost to the 34th ranked Tommy Berden in the quarterfinal

(7) Ritwik Bhattacharya l. (1) Tommy Berden 10-15, 4-15, 11-15 (40m)


Ritwik entry is not in the latest draws of either Belgian open or Chezh open next week. As such, his next tournament will be COAS International 2004, 22-25 Feb, Rawalpindi, Pakistan, $25k, where he is 4th in the qualifiers list.

Kathir

Thanks Kathir for providing us with the report.

I am sad to hear Ritwik's loss to the top seed.

Go Ritwik.