Senior National Badminton: Shruti Mundada, Parul Choudhary, Tanvi Patri upset higher-ranked players to reach pre-quarters

Vijayawada, Dec 25 (IANS) The experienced Shruti Mundada, Parul Choudhary, and rising star Tanvi Patri upset higher-ranked opponents to reach the women’s singles pre-quarterfinals of the 87th Senior National Badminton Championships in Vijayawada on Thursday. 

Shruti packed off seventh seed Jiya Rawat 21-14, 21-9 while Parul got the better of 9th seed 18-21, 21-18, 21-12 to advance to the next round. Tanvi Patri also ended the campaign of eighth seed Isharani Baruah 22-20, 21-19.

Also advancing to the next round were top seed Unnati Hooda, second seed Anupama Upadhyaya, third seed Anmol Kharb, and world junior silver medallist Tanvi Sharma.

In men’s singles, Aryaman Tandon upset third seed M Raghu 17-21, 21-11, 21-14 in the round of 32. Abhinav Garg and Rithvik Sanjeevi S. also created upsets to reach the pre-quarters.

Garg got the better of 10th seed Abhinav Thakur 21-19, 21-16, while Rithvik defeated 13th seed Orijit Chaliha 21-15, 21-19. In the mixed doubles event, Nitin Kumar and Kanika Kanwal upset the 6th seeds Kevin Wong CC and Pranavi N 23-21, 21-15.

Earlier on Wednesday, Women’s top seed Unnati, world junior championships silver medallists Tanvi Sharma, the experienced Aakarshi Kashyap, and upcoming junior Rounak Chauhan registered convincing wins to reach the next round.

Unnati, who had a bye in the first round, hammered wildcard entrant Akanksha Matte 21-8, 21-18, while Tanvi began her campaign with a 21-10, 21-14 win over Asian U-15 girls singles gold medallist Shaina Manimuthu.

Also advancing to the next round were the experienced Aakarshi, who defeated Asian U-17 championships silver medallist Lakshya Rajesh 21-7, 21-9, while Ashmita Chaliha got the better of Kavya Marvaniya 21-7, 21-11.

In the men’s singles event, 11th seed Chauhan defeated Ranveer Singh 21-9, 21-13, while 12th seed D S Saneeth beat Ankit Mondal 21-7, 21-11 to book their spots in the next round. 16th seed and Guwahati Masters Super 100 champions Sanskar Saraswat also began his campaign in style with a 21-11, 21-13 win over Shikhar Rallan.

--IANS

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